


The Dark Below

by tb_ll57



Series: A Brother Is Born For Adversity [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, Gap Filler, Grief/Mourning, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Hogwarts Third Year, Horcrux Hunting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Life Debts & Vows, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Quidditch World Cup, Reunions, Second War with Voldemort, Sirius Goes Free, Teaching, Triwizard Tournament, Trust Issues, Undecided Relationship(s), Werewolves, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 65,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5626216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a journey, there's no such thing as luck, destiny is the choices you make, love is louder than hate.  Maybe.  Sirius Black is on the run, and Remus is used to following.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> 'No, sir. Go to hell sir. It's the best I can do for you sir.'
> 
> ~Jack London, The Call Of The Wild

The pub was cool on a hot evening, which was the most Remus could find in his heart to say for the experience.  His entrance was greeted with glowering suspicion, the bartender glaring daggers at him, but for once it wasn't solely Remus found wanting.  When Remus crossed the creaking floors to seat himself with two eccentrically dressed gentleman, the bartender's scowl took on a ferocious edge.  The freaks were all together, then, said that look, and the bartender put down the glass he was polishing and started lingering near a cricket bat tacked to the wall.

'How odd,' said Albus Dumbledore.  'The wench was quite polite when she took our order.'

'They don't really call them "wenches" anymore,' Remus replied.  He tucked his fraying carpet bag into the corner of the booth beneath the flickering neon sign announcing the presence of Guinness on the premises, and sat himself.  '"Server" is enough.'

'Very descriptive,' Albus approved.  'Do catch me if I make any faux pas, Mr Lupin.  I would hate to give away our disguise.'

That, Remus thought, weary and all too susceptible to that familiar twinkle.  That.  He'd missed it.  And damn Dumbledore for knowing it exactly, and wielding those kind old eyes like a barbed and war-sharpened weapon.

Severus Snape, sat beside Dumbledore opposite Remus, gave a little snort into his glass of bitter.  Well he might, for of the two of them he looked the least like a wizard disguising himself to walk amongst Muggles for an evening, though he was no less the stand-out.  His starched white dress shirt and stiff black worsted gave him the look of an Anglican who'd wandered into a workingman pub quite by accident.  His nose jutted beak-like from a sallow face, his lips pursed with what might be distaste for the greasy table he was obliged to sit at, that squint due solely to the dim light through unwashed windows, but the protective curl of his fine hands was all about the company he had come to keep-- and not Dumbledore, at that.  Albus was-- Albus.  His cherry-coloured linen summerwear was gloriously suited to the weather in a Renoir painting, Remus thought, surprising himself with fondness.  The soft shimmer of silvery hair spread luxuriously over his lapels to tangle with a large blossom of a flower no Muggle in the pub could possibly recognise was not contempt for their locale, but obliviousness of a most enthusiastic kind.  Albus held a glass of something golden and syrupy that smelled strongly of iodine and sipped it with obvious pleasure, all aquiver with the experience of the place, aglow with the stares they received.  They'd be lucky to get away without having to Obliviate the entire crowd.

The server-- wench-- spared Remus from conversation, arriving with a tray of food.  She eyed Remus with the same scrupulous lack of welcome as the bartender, edging the plates closer to Snape and Dumbledore than to the scruffy interloper.  Remus didn't trouble himself with her, only dimly aware of her frosty stare as he dragged the basket of fish and chips to himself.  The smell.  He hadn't had a hot meal in-- weeks?  He couldn't remember it, which meant it had been rather far gone, and this was no stale sandwich from the near-expired bin in a corner convenience.  He had a mouthful of steaming greasy chips in his mouth before she could ask if he wanted the malt vinegar or catsup.  He ignored her, and she returned him the favour, stalking off with a curled lip and a mutter of disgust.

'You at least received my owl,' Albus said, taking for himself a jacket potato topped with tuna and a slab of half-melted cheese.  He sprinkled it liberally with both salt and pepper.  'Does this also mean you've considered my proposal?'

'I've considered it.'  Remus swallowed with difficulty.  His hands had begun to shake, and half the fish broke off, landing with a slightly sodden plop in the paper.  It burnt his gums a bit, but not enough to slow him up.  Mushy peas, as appetising as sludge if he'd been a man with the luxury of only eating what came to taste.  It was heaven now, glopped on a chip, and he had to remind himself to chew thoroughly instead of slamming it down.  A movement at his right made him clutch the plate near, but it was just Snape, pushing a bottle of fizzy at him.  Remus took it with a bare nod.  It calmed the nerves, and the nausea.  He didn't quite meet the eyes of the men across from him, and they didn't interrupt him again til he'd cleared off the sole and most of the chips, and sat shredding a serviette with a grimy fingernail.

'You will have heard the last schoolyear was less than successful,' Albus said then, as if they'd not sat in silence nearly ten minutes.  'We are, as you might imagine, rather in a struggle for qualified candidates.'

'Gilderoy Lockhart doesn't have a cousin who could teach?'  Remus sipped the last of the fizzy.  He already felt uncomfortably full, and tired.  Exhausted, even, and they would be at this argument a while, he didn't doubt.  'There are qualified candidates.  I'm a fully qualified master with several years' teaching experience.'

'Indeed.  You are my preferred choice.  My best option.'

'What about the curse? No-one can hold the DADA post longer than a year.'

'An unsubstantiated rumour.'  Dumbledore paused.  'Whether true or not, I must admit it's been difficult to keep the post filled.'

'What will you do with me if they've not caught Sirius by the end of the year, then?'

'We'd find another position to keep you near,' Dumbledore replied, and repeating himself, for that matter, as he'd already wrote that in his letter to Remus.  'I have been hesitant to attempt what must seem the obvious work-around: rotating trusted individuals in and out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts post.  It's become an increasingly risky proposition, and I cannot risk losing--'

'People you can trust, yes.  You sent me to France.  I didn't think I numbered amongst those you trusted.'

'You stayed voluntarily,' Albus reminded him gently.  'And returned to Britain in your own time.'

His palms were sweating.  Remus rubbed them on his trousers.  'You kept me from him.  Harry.  Now it's suddenly all right?'

'Not suddenly, no.  And, as I wrote, I would ask that certain facts be allowed to emerge naturally, if indeed they emerge at all.'

'You wish me to lie about Sirius.  About his godfather.  His legal guardian.'

'Not his legal guardian,' Snape said, and Remus risked meeting his eyes.  Dark mirrors, reflecting only, not inviting in.  'A convicted Death Eater, on the run from the Ministry.  A danger to the boy, who has a talent for finding dangers on much slimmer pretext than that.'

The tremor was back in his fingers, and his stomach was plainly upset now.  He wanted nothing so much as to curl away in some dim corner, but he'd agreed to come, and not just for a decent meal.  He wanted to know, he desperately wanted to know, and Albus Dumbledore had dangled that forbidden knowledge like a carrot.  His tongue was parched, so desperate to ask.

Reluctantly he gave way.  Dumbledore knew what he wanted and would meet him this far, in hopes of enticing him to more.  'What's he like?' Remus managed, level and proud of it, not indifferent, no.  Albus, damn him, warmed immediately, with a soft smile that grew to include Remus as well as the boy they spoke of.

'Everything we could have hoped for,' the old wizard said.  'Brave.  Intelligent, though perhaps not overly invested in his classwork.  Remarkably selfless.  He took possession of the Philosopher's Stone with no desire to use it--'

'Ignorance of its properties and more frightened of what the Dark Lord would do with it,' Snape interrupted, as if he couldn't help himself, and stiffly removed his hand from the tabletop when Dumbledore touched his wrist to quiet him.

'He descended alone into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue a classmate.'

'Foolhardy,' Snape muttered, glaring at the window.  'Vainglorious.'

'He has had no especial acclaim for either of those acts, owing to the necessary secrecy surrounding them.  He was able to retrieve and use the Sword of Gryffindor.'

'Which he used as an actual sword, Albus.  Again, ignorance.  He could have performed any number of complex or powerful spells by mere wish and he just jabbed away at an ancient basilisk like a schoolboy with a stick--'

'If Harry is ignorant of magic, it is the fault of his instruction.'  That silenced Snape, and Albus sighed.  'Perhaps in our lack of imagination, in failing to realise he would not know of these things, given his upbringing.  He was raised as a Muggle, unaware of and, so far as I can tell, disbelieving of magic until Hagrid revealed the truth to him on the occasion of his eleventh birthday.'

'Harry Potter, raised as a Muggle.'  Remus flattened his hands across his thighs, marvelling at that.  Marvelling at the stupidity of it.  'So it wasn't just me you keep from him.'

'It was safer, this way.  Sirius Black is not the only man who might have cause to seek revenge for his master's defeat.  And, as we have now confirmed, there is Voldemort himself to consider.  Harry is not invulnerable at Hogwarts, but far safer there than any home without a thousand years of wards and a population of wizards and witches dedicated to the defence of their students.  I believed anonymity to be just as important to Harry's safety as any blood ward or Fidelius.'

'Believed.'  Remus looked up, in time to watch Dumbledore's eyes slide from meeting his gaze.  'Blood ward.  Lily's sister?  His aunt and uncle?  But Lily would never have left him in their care, they were hardly fit--'

'Indeed, having made it very clear how little truck they have with wizarding society, they are the last people one might imagine to have custody of any wizarding child, especially this one.  It may not have been the most desirable situation...'

There was a world unspoken in that.  Hinted, perhaps.  Albus knew Remus had come with questions, thirteen years of questions to be precise, and provided him an opening.  Albus wanted his trust, or at least enough of it to serve his purpose.  Remus had made it clear honesty was his asking price.  An even exchange.

Remus tested it carefully.  'Not the most desirable,' he repeated slowly.  'Because Muggles who have no truck with wizarding society raised Harry to be ignorant of his heritage?'

'Amongst other issues, yes.  I believe a more accurate characterisation of the Dursleys' attitude toward magic would be--'  Albus hesitated for just a fraction of a moment, and finished quite deadpan, 'dismissive at best, and hostile at its worst.'

'Hostile.'  Remus knew all about hostile; he was feeling rather hostile himself, looking into that weathered face and wondering at the secrets it held.  'And their attitude toward Harry?'

Snape was sneering.  'The darling of--'

'I cannot say he was well-treated.'

'What can you say?' Remus countered.

Albus laid his fork and knife neatly across his plate.  'Plainly, then.  I find him neglected, if not outright abused.  His invitation to Hogwarts was addressed to "the cupboard under the stairs", and, as you know, the quill directs those letters to the place the child considers his home.  That invitation did not, in fact, reach Harry.  His relatives were most adamantly opposed to Harry's attending our institution, and went to radical lengths to keep him in ignorance.  Hagrid eventually tracked Harry to a remote hut in the Orkneys, where his relations evidently thought magic could not find them.  Harry has indicated to me that his life with the Dursleys is uncomfortable.  Arthur Weasley confirmed that his sons Ronald, Fred, and George broke Harry out of a locked and barred room from which Harry was prevented contacting any of his friends all summer.  Molly is quite convinced he was being starved.  He has received no correspondence from his relatives in the two years he's been at Hogwarts, not even a reply to three letters sent by myself and Madam Pomfrey notifying his family of injuries obtained at the school, nor to a letter from Severus notifying them of the incident with the flying car--'

'Flying car?'

'Harry has twice now remained at the school for the holidays, and, according again to the Weasleys, may be denied food as well as freedom when he is with his relatives.'

Snape regarded Albus during this recitation as if he were hearing it for the first time, Remus noted.  That was disbelief, denial, and that, those eyes dropping at the final damning indictment of the Dursleys, uncertainty.  But Remus didn't spare much thought for Severus Snape and his conscience.  It was all eyes on Albus Dumbledore, and Remus was thinking-- ask about remorse and hear what you expect to.  Of course he wishes it were otherwise.  Ask for a promise to rectify the situation and hear what you expect, too.  If Albus meant to change Harry's circumstances he wouldn't be talking about filling a teaching position, he'd be talking to a Pureblood, Light family like the Weasleys or the Smiths or the Longbottoms about guardianship.  Adoption.  The first Remus Lupin heard about it would have been the headlines in the newspapers, not a covert meeting in a Devonshire Muggle public house.

Ask for the moon and fall before you reach it.  Ask for something achievable, and get what you can hold.  Remus thought that, and thought about what he wanted, thought about what he could get, and asked, cautiously, for more information.

 

'All right, you've laid your groundwork.  So the real answer, now: what is Harry like?'

His lack of a screaming fit and bellowed accusations was received with a grateful nod.  Not yet, old man, Remus swore silently, but let none of his emotions reach his face.  They might never have their reckoning, but the tally sat between them anyway, lies upon half-truths upon broken words upon manipulations made for a greater good Remus had yet to see realised.  Promises.  No, Dumbledore was very, very careful not to make promises, wasn't he.

'Suspicious of adults,' Albus said now.  'Untrusting and arrogant, yes, Severus, in that he supposes he has to and can do things on his own, though we may well suspect that he has always had to do.  He has failed to disclose important facts which may have led his Head of House or myself to uncover great dangers before they hatched, apparently deciding once scorned that he would always be spurned.  He takes every "no" as an absolute, and every rule as evidence that someone wishes him harm.  Given what we know of the Dursleys, we can assume he earned that worldview justly.'

Snape gave off just the faintest flicker of guilt.  'Who's he allied?' Remus asked, tracking that, and noting as well that all this blunt candour of Dumbledore's appeared to be coming as quite a shock, not as a recitation of well-discussed history agreed upon by the senior teaching staff of a school responsible for the boy's physical and mental wellbeing.  Just who was untrusting, Albus?

'A Muggleborn girl, Miss Hermione Granger, quite bright and very competent.  And the youngest Weasley children; their family have taken an interest in him, and he in turn in them.  He arrived at Hogwarts with no knowledge at all of wizarding society and clearly believes himself to be on its fringes still, which is why I want you, Remus.'  They were to it, now, and Albus made his pitch.  'He will recognise in you someone like he perceives himself to be-- persecuted, ignored, isolated.  Listen to him and let him trust you.  He has father figures, but he needs a mentor.  Teach him to protect himself.'

'Just tell him as little possible in the doing.'

'I would have him self-aware, first.  He will be the stronger for it.  There is time yet to instruct him in all he will face if Voldemort effects his return.'

A moment of silence fell.  Remus dragged a chip through the remaining squidge of pease, and ate it, chewing slowly.  He wiped his mouth on a fresh serviette and folded it over his plate.  The serving wench was there to snatch it up a moment later, placing a hand-written tab in prominent place on the table.  'Nine pound fifty for the food,' she said.  'Another three quid for the drinks.'

'Of course, my dear.'  Albus placed a crisp twenty pound note in her outstretched hand, and beamed at her for grudgingly producing a fiver and change from the pocket of her apron.  'Lovely, thank you.  My dear, could you direct me to the little wizard's room?'

Remus snorted unwilling amusement at that.  The dotty old bat act worked its charms, as usual.  The fiver making its way back to her apron lubricated her mood considerably.  'Round the back, sir,' she said, and even led him past the bar to the garden WC, smiling as she sent him off, the most powerful wizard in Britain, maybe the world, tottering to the loo like a lost grandpa.

Remus dug the heels of his hands into his sore eyes, scratched his hair back from his face, and let his chin fall to his chest.

'Quite,' said Snape.

'Shut up.'  Remus rubbed his eyes again, wishing he'd had a better sleep last night.  A lot of previous nights.  'What would you do?'

'Run fast and far in the other direction.  But I'm not starving and homeless.'  Snape shoved his nearly untouched plate of beef stew at Remus, who caught the spoon before it could splatter the tabletop with drippings.  'You look wretched.'

'It's been a bit shit, to be honest.'

'It was your choice, to stay in the rain when he invited you back inside.'

'He didn't, you know.  And if you think my wretched estate bothers him, wrong again.'

'Perhaps he's not quite so hard as you imagine.'  Snape took a long glance at the bar, and slid a cloth pouch across the table behind the stack of menus.  It clanked.  'Albus wishes you to know there is an advance for the position.'

Remus licked the spoon clean.  His stomach was a little too poorly for the effort, but it tasted good.  Warm.  Homely.  There would be plenty of its like at Hogwarts, and a soft bed indoors and clean clothes and any number of marvels one could miss very much even in the magical world, where conjuring could only get one so far.  He said, 'The school governors.  They won't have a werewolf for a teacher.  Even if they didn't mind it, it's been law for two years, to disclose my condition before accepting employment.'

'You have disclosed.  So to speak.  Albus is fully aware of your... condition.'

'That's sophistry.'

'Take it or not, I--'

'Don't care?  Have no opinion?  No games with me, Severus.  I know you rather too well for that.'

Snape leant over the table, long white fingers stabbing out and locking hard about Remus' wrist.  'Let us speak of things we know, shall we?  I'll make the Wolfsbane for you, Albus already assured that, but listen well, Lupin.  I will make it for you.  And I will monitor my supplies and I will be monitoring you, very closely.  Do you understand me?  There are no opportunities for you here.'

'It's not lack of opportunity that keeps me tame,' Remus murmured, and met Snape's eyes one more time.  He left it open, left himself open for that talent Snape had, but he felt no invasion, no tickle of an invisible breeze against the edge of his mind that signalled magic at work.  Seven years might be plenty time to master the Legilimency Remus remembered as a battering attack on his mental defences, a sword slicing like fire through inadequate armour, but even if Snape was good enough these days to hide all evidence of Legilimency, Remus didn't think he was troubling to do so.  Snape was choosing not to read him, not to go fetching proof for his own edification.  Verification.  Remus ate a spoonful of stew with a thick chunk of carrot.  'I know it was wrong.  You restored the part of me that makes it impossible to--'

'Murder your way across the Continent.'

'Or supply the people who could commit an act such as that without a troubled heart.  And I wouldn't bring that business near Harry.  You know I wouldn't.'

'Then you have changed.  You didn't scruple about children before.'

That was an old pain now.  A pain he had lived in, lived with, and learnt to use, so that he wouldn't forget what he'd learnt from it.  'You know I've changed,' he said quietly.  'Or you would have found me and stopped me years ago.  What's he really like?'

'Who?'

'Harry.  You looked sceptical.'

Snape sat back abruptly.  His cultured low voice was steady in its reply, but the dark eyes above it had gone shuttered.  'He is arrogant.  But...'

'But?  Dumbledore surprised you?'

'I hadn't considered that perspective before, honestly.  If it's true--'

If.  Remus didn't know which of them that 'if' was for, Dumbledore or Remus.  Or for Snape himself.  A man who didn't like to be proved wrong, but who liked ignorance much less, specially in himself.

And a man who would not abide ignorance, in anyone who claimed however small a sliver of his respect.  Snape blinked once at him, made peace with his opinion of Harry Potter, and saved his most effective strike for the last, as he always had.

'You still call him Sirius,' Snape said.

Remus used the edge of the spoon to shred a hunk of overcooked beef.  'Yes.'

'He will use any weakness you present.  Any friendship you still feel for him, however misguided.'

'He was a friend, once.  I have to suppose that, once, he was a boy too young for the evil he'd grow up to commit.  I have to believe that whatever went wrong in him started good, because it can't all be lies.'  Remus ate the beef, chewing mechanically.  It went down on a very dry swallow.  'And I have to mourn that boy.  That's Sirius.  So far as I'm concerned, that Sirius is dead, like all the others.  The man who's out there now isn't that Sirius.  But if I didn't acknowledge my feelings, I couldn't guard against them.  I don't have it in me to be ruthless, not anymore.  If Dumbledore thinks I do, you should tell him.  Secrets can be exploited.'

'I did tell him.'  That emerged on a fragile thin thread.  Not an apology, but something that trembled just on the verge of remorse, for something old they'd shared.  A smile in the dark, a warm kiss, and memories.  Memories stolen from Dumbledore's Pensieve, and with them all the living guilt, the grief, the hurt, and the choice not to act on it.

Remus looked away first.  'Do you think Albus wandered out the back and left?' he asked, and spooned in too large a mouthful, and grimaced.  Wiped at the whisper of damp at the corner of an eye, and forced himself to swallow.  'I et a dog.  About a year, year and a half ago-- it was a bad winter.  Part of a dog.  It's bizarre-- I kept thinking, does this make me a cannibal?'

Snape's thin lips parted, then pursed.  He said, 'Wolves eat dogs.'

'People don't.'

'I don't know about that.  I'd have to inspect the kitchen before I'd vouch for that stew.'

Despite himself, Remus cracked a smile.  It felt like that, cracking, ice, stone cracking in him.  'Suppose so,' he said softly, and finished his meal as Albus returned to discuss the year's curriculum.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living... it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.'
> 
> ~Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Remus stared at the map, holding his breath, eyes straining against the instinct to blink.

Peter Pettigrew.

Peter Pettigrew.

_Peter Pettigrew._

It was true. Incontrovertibly true. He'd half deconstructed the complex of spells that made up the Map, but they were none of them flawed, none of them broken, none of them miscast. Peter Pettigrew.

And Sirius Black.

Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black. On Hogwarts grounds. Temporal distortion? Had the Map somehow reverted to a state more familiar now it was back in the hands of one of its creators? But the only Potter who appeared on the map wasn't a man a decade dead, but his son, and he was to be found as always with his Muggleborn friend Hermione Granger and the youngest Weasley boy. They were outside the castle, they were--

Remus spotted the little moving dot heading rapidly for his own office, and sagged.  There certainly weren't two Harry Potters at Hogwarts, much less one out of doors and one inside.  The Map was malfunctioning after all.  Some small part of him was relieved.  When he'd seen that name he'd been sure Sirius had deliberately chosen a night he'd known Remus wouldn't have the capacity to stand against him; Sirius could watch the moon as well as any man and knew with intimate detail just what it meant for Remus.  He rose, settling an errant shiver of fear and unease that wouldn't be put aside so readily after that scare with the Map.  He could already hear Harry pounding up the steps to his loft above the classroom--

The door burst open just as Remus reached for him.  He swayed back out of harm's way, only to be swarmed by Harry, who grabbed him by the elbows and stared up into his face, panting with exertion, sweat pouring tracks through the dirt on his face.  He was all over scratches, little bleeding lines standing out on his hands and skinny wrists and flushed cheeks, but it was the look in his eyes that Remus found disturbing.  This was not the same boy he'd seen only a few hours ago.  This boy had seen something that had shaken him within an inch of his soul, and looked up at his professor with a horrible kind of understanding that should never have been there.

'Professor,' Harry said breathlessly.  'Take your potion.'

'My-- what?  Harry?'

'Take your potion,' Harry said, emphasising every word with deadly weight.  'Take your potion.  It'll save his life.'

And then he was gone.

Remus stared after him as he clattered right back down the steps, pelted through the central aisle of desks in the class, hurtled out the door.  He heard a female voice ask something, and Harry's low frantic answer.  A moment later, he was entirely alone, as if it had never happened at all.

Remus turned.  There sat his desk, exactly as it had been, the Map spread wide over it, one corner weighted down with a kappa skull, the opposite end with a goblet that smoked gently.

His potion.  Harry had seen him drink that potion, brought by Severus, but Harry couldn't possibly know what it was.  He was absolutely sure of that.  The people who did know his secret were all too obvious, as wizards often were, unused to even basic subterfuge in a community of small perspectives and limited exposure to the outside world.  Half of Slytherin house had been in the know since first term, with Severus swooping about issuing dire warnings and setting suspicious assignments.  Remus had worried less about Slytherins, who played enough at politics to keep a secret if they saw the gain in it, than about the Ravenclaws, who saw only that a rule was being broken and that authority demanded a show of force in keeping.  He'd wondered at his own memories, in which the Marauders had been master sleuths for figuring him out, in which their glorious freedom to master the Animagus transformations and take the Forbidden Forest for their private kingdom had been the triumph of a lifetime.  It was too wearying, to return to this school as an adult, to realise how petty and precious most such secrets were, how open a young child's face could be, how sweet that presumption of innocence.  Remus had littered his desk with student secrets in the course of nine months, few of them any more dangerous than a Weasley prank and the occasional broken heart.  He'd been sat at that desk when Harry had come to him, the first week of school, to bring him an apple--

Remus picked up the goblet of Wolfsbane Potion, and for the first time in his life drank it back without even a flinch for the way it assaulted all his senses, the painful tightening of his jaw, the crawl of imaginary ants over every inch of skin, the wrenching of his gut and the seizing of his muscles.  He turned for the door, and then turned back.  He grabbed for quill and parchment, and scrawled a brief line of text.

 _I think it's likely we'll need witnesses,_ he wrote, and drew a large circle on the Map surrounding the Shrieking Shack, and called a house elf to make him a delivery.

 

 

**

 

 

'Remus!' Sprout greeted him, squeezing his hand as she settled into her seat beside him.  'Look at you, all grown up.'

That Remus had it in him to blush was a marvel.  'Professor,' he said, the only proper and entirely automatic response to that bit of mothering, but Sprout chuckled without taking offence.

'Pomona,' she reminded him.  'We're colleagues now, my dear, and very glad of it.  Dumbledore's finally found someone actually worthy of the post!'

Remus opted for a show of ignorance.  'I understand it's been a bit difficult to keep anyone longer than a year.'

'Ha,' said Sinistra, to his other side.  'Good riddance.  Now if we were speaking of Zweibenfeber or Morrowful I'd have some words of regret, but it's been a decade at least since we've had anyone in Defence to speak highly of.'  She tapped her empty wine glass with her wand, and it promptly filled itself with ruby red wine.  'A little more,' she told it critically, and the level rose an ounce.  'A little more-- oh, just fill it up, will you?  Did Albus tell you anything about the last two?'

The noise in the Hall was near to deafening.  It was one of the rare times House unity had yet to assert itself, the moments before the Welcoming Feast.  Students greeted friends who wore every colour of badge, each chattering more loudly than their neighbour to be heard, milling about in groups and pairs without any rush to get to their seats.  An entire summer's worth of gossip was being exchanged, out there, and Remus could hear more than he suspected the other professors could, his ears still sensitive in the wake of their monthly transformation.

'Yes,' Remus said, and took up his goblet of water to wet his rasping throat.  'I understand the Chamber of Secrets was opened by Harry Potter and Gilderoy Lockhart.'

'Lockhart,' snorted Sprout-- Pomona.  'That idiot couldn't open a locked cupboard.'

'Let us not speak ill of the insane,' Minerva McGonagall interjected primly and with a rather vicious spark of laughter in her bright eyes.  She bent over the back of Remus' chair, overlooking his flinch as she eyed something in the Hall beyond.  'We'll bring in the First Years in a moment.  We'll have the Sorting, the speeches, the usual business, two hours or so.  The Heads of Houses are usually involved in settling the new students for the night, but Albus has requested a meeting of the staff at half past ten.  Someone will show you to your rooms-- thank you, Sybill.  My apologies,' she added in an undertone to Remus, who needed only a sidelong glance at the woman attempting to move her many shawls to display a little decolletage in his direction to understand he'd just been sacrificed at the altar of a longer-term problem.  'Oh, and Remus.  Excellent, keeping your head about you on the train.  Poor Potter, it's always something, isn't it.'

Remus gathered himself for a nod, the most he could manage, but Minerva had already moved on at the martial clip which meant they were running behind schedule.  Not on my watch, said that steely scowl.

'All right, dear?' Sinistra asked him.  'You look a bit peckish.  Here, have some wine.'

Remus swallowed too eagerly, and knew when it hit his empty stomach he'd pay for it.  Half a glass went down too readily, and brought with it a kind of giddy warmth that meant he should have waited for the food first.  Elf wine.  Too sweet, too potent.  He put his hands in his lap, fidgeting with his napkin, so no-one could see them shaking.

The Sorting seemed to take forever, though it was only thirty-some students.  No names he knew, or he thought so, anyway, finding himself swimming a bit in all the noise and light.  One moment there was a Henry or an Astoria or someone perched on the Sorting Stool with the Hat bellowing undimmed enthusiasm, and the next Dumbledore was at his podium, spectacular in robes of avocado green and house slippers of soft pink rabbit fur tapping occasionally where the students wouldn't see them, giving the year's announcements, and then Pomona was poking Remus in the shoulder-- 'He's said your name, love, stand up!'  Remus shot unsteadily to his feet, flushing, and his face flamed even harder when he was, quite unexpectedly, cheered from the Gryffindor table.  Harry and the little knot of students who'd been in the compartment with him, all applauding heartily.  He fwumped back into his seat and sought to disappear into the wine that made its way back into his hand.

'Dashing and heroic,' Pomona chuckled.  'Eat your heart out, Gilderoy.'

Remus gave her a spasm of a smile.  She patted his arm companionably, and then turned her attention to the platters of food that appeared with a pop all along the tables.

Remus took a deep breath.  His mouth was wet with saliva.  The others were digging in with no reserve, each reaching for their particular favourite amidst the wide offerings of the Welcome Feast.  There was pheasant, fish in lemon and capers, pork cutlets.  Remus chose carefully from the vegetables, a floret of boiled broccoli in butter, waxy potatoes in parsley, glazed carrots.  He arranged them in a sort of circle at the edges of his plate, touching them this way and that with the flat of his knife.  The character of the noise of the Great Hall was fading, changing; it was the clash of silverware now, a hundred children who didn't chew with their mouths shut, satisfied talk here and there, excited coos from the First Years expressing proper amazement at the spread.  Severus was watching him, glowering from the far end of the table.  Remus kept his eyes on his plate, slicing veg into ever-smaller bites and confining himself to--

The pressure in his chest was unbearable, and the moment it reached his eyes in a haze of hot tears he mumbled his excuses and shoved back from the Head Table.  He heard Sinistra ask something, but didn't stay to answer.  He was too blind to see where he was going, only knew he had to be gone.  Air.  He needed air, and privacy, and he was going to--

He was sick in the cool dark of the anteroom where the First Years had gathered to await their grand entrance.  There was still a damp trail of mud tracked in from the boat docks, but it was empty, and only a single torch burned, snuffed out when Remus flicked his wand at it.  Acrid smoke nearly covered the lingering scent of vomit, when Remus swished his wand at that, too.  He stood limp with his shoulders flat against the cool stone of the wall, staring blearily at the dark outside the window glass.  He still felt drunk, dizzy with it, muzzled.  His skin was clammy when he rubbed the traces of sick from his mouth.

Dementors on the train.  Graves in Godric's Hollow.  The coil of transfigured rope in his hands, as he lowered it about his own neck.

He was at Hogwarts, and Sirius Black was somewhere out there in the dark, and Harry Potter somewhere inside in all the bright light and noise and cheer, and it was supposed to feel right.  It didn't.

Remus went in, passed off his sudden dash as nerves with a smile, and let Sybill Trelawney walk him to his rooms in the teachers' wing near Ravenclaw Tower.  His carpet bag and carry case had been set on the large canopy bed that awaited him, large sagging mattress draped in blue velvet.  A portrait of Nicodemus Meticulosa the Third hunched its shoulder at Remus and concentrated fiercely on a book rather than greet him, but that was all right.  He didn't feel much like talking just then.

 

 

 

He hadn't taught in seven years, qualified as he was.  Beauxbatons had been a very different atmosphere, a stricter place with rigid curricula and dogmatically enforced uniformity.  Hogwarts encouraged individuality, to sometimes disastrous effect, and Remus struck solidly for middle ground.  The lack of consistent planning in Defence had yielded years of poor OWLs and failing NEWTs, and he had asked for, and been granted, permission to approach his year in the post as a sort of remedial intervention.  The younger years needed a grounding in the basics, and the older years needed to learn what they'd be tested on and required to know for career pre-requisites.  Seven years and four Houses worth of planning had been crammed into a few days before his late August moon, and in its wake he felt bedraggled, worn, too weary to take on the daunting task of putting it to practise.  But he'd taken the job, and he meant to do it well.

His whirlwind first week left him with a working assessment of his students, and an eye for the likeliest troublemakers.  The fifth year Weasley twins were so notorious that Albus had mentioned them in Remus' interview, and ten minutes of the initial staff meeting was devoted to what appeared to be an annual tradition of gambling amongst the professors on first prank pulled.  McGonagall had the advantage of knowing them best, but it was Flitwick whose bet landed closest-- a rather daring escapade involving a possible but unprovable break-in to Argus Filch's office, complete with complex illusions, a Transfigured statue, and pellets that sent Mrs Norris the cat on an amourous rampage.  Remus kept both eyes on them and let them know he was doing it, but took the offencive rather than wait for them to go looking for the outer reaches of his authority.

'I suppose you've found the fourth storey Asking Wardrobe?' he inquired innocently, as he examined something Fred Weasley shame-facedly produced from a pocket on Remus' command, creatively named a 'Canary Creme'.

Both twins perked their ears so visibly they might have been cats, attuned to the slightest twitch of an unsuspicious mouse.  'Asking Wardrobe?' repeated George.

'No?  And here I thought you two knew every nook and cranny by now.'  He returned the Creme, not nearly stupid enough to invite them to break into his desk to retrieve it-- or worse, pocket it himself and find his robes splattered with whatever enchanted goop they'd come up with.  'I wonder what else you've missed,' he commented idly, and walked on, dispensing the fifth year supplemental text he'd ordered.  They were engaged in a fierce conversation of whispers before he'd reached the end of the row.  That would keep them occupied for a few weeks, he reckoned, and that was time they wouldn't be spending dispensing their more obnoxious wares to the rest of the student body.  He'd have to think of another way of keeping them engaged after that, but it was a start.

There was trouble brewing in Slytherin and Ravenclaw Houses, but that was nothing new.  He marked a few seventh years and two sixth who displayed obvious disappointment at his first class speech that he wouldn't be teaching curses, but rather counters, and with a first-term focus on theory, not duelling.  He marked, too, the ones who kept their disappointment to themselves and made trips to the Library within the first week, headed straight for the Restricted Section.  A few might be bought off with extra tutoring, recommendations of books that would satisfy their curiosity without providing step-by-step instruction in actual Dark Arts, but there was no knowing which ones had arrived with grimoires from old family collections, which ones had already begun to cast spells they wouldn't learn in a school administered by an icon of the Light.  He would watch their faces for the faint hints of knowing-- teenagers proud to know something the teacher wouldn't teach them, contemptuous of their ignorant peers, teenagers corrupted or haunted by knowledge of the grim capability magic could have in the wrong hands.  He set Hufflepuffs in charge of every year's study groups, enraging the Ravenclaws who thought it their birthright and Slytherins accustomed to lording it over their mild-mannered peers, and in the process pleasing a number of bright young students who rarely received acknowledgement in a crowd of stronger personalities.  They would strive to please him and he could trust their sense of fairness to filter the extraneous feuds, temper trantrums, and minor squabbles, whilst ensuring they would feel enough loyalty to bring him the truly worrisome problems.

Severus had been full of dire warnings about three students he bitingly referred to as The Golden Trio-- Harry Potter at its centre, Ronald Weasley its slightly errant lieutenant, and Hermione Granger its strategist.  Remus verified for himself that they did indeed stick close to each other, often in direct opposition to a trio Severus had failed to mention.  Draco Malfoy and his large friends Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle reminded Remus painfully of the Marauders.  Draco was much more like the strutting James Potter of thirteen than Harry, who was generally quiet and reactive, raising a fuss only when provoked; not unlike Severus Snape had been, taunted relentlessly by a spoilt and smug Pureblood who would never realise the damage he was inflicting with that thoughtless bullying.  Malfoy spent much of the first week re-enacting Harry's faint on the train, Goyle and Crabbe playing the part of spooky Dementors.  It would come to a head, Remus was sure, but he never personally caught them at it. But it did provide him an opportunity, and so he held Harry back after their first class, gently separating him from his two friends, and stood staring at Harry, face to face, alone, and forbidden from saying the first thousand or so things he most desperately wanted to.

Harry was already a young man, or just starting to be.  He didn't have much height on him, but he had shed the soft roundness of cheek and hand that most boys his age still had.  He had rough knuckles, and a way of standing slightly akimbo, as if he planned on leaping back at any moment.  There was something rangy and wary about him, and Remus saw in that years of that neglect Albus had described, a boy who had no reason to expect kindness from a stranger.  And, for that matter, a boy who'd been viciously attacked by two previous Defence instructors, so Remus made a point of laying his wand on a desk and stepping away from it, of sitting on the edge of a trunk with his hands flattened to his knees well in view.  Harry's rigid stance eased just slightly, and Remus gave himself a moment to ease words past the pained constriction of his throat.

'I hope you will forgive me,' he said.  'About the lesson.'

Harry's chin tilted up.  He had a slight scar there, a fall many years ago, perhaps, healed in the Muggle way.  Unconsciously, then too consciously, Remus touched a scar on his own cheek.  Harry's eyes followed his finger.

'Forgive you for what, sir?' Harry asked.

He didn't sound like James.  Remus thought.  He wasn't sure how much he could trust his own memory, not at this distance.  But it didn't have the tone of James' voice, all self-assuredness and grinning charm.

'No, I.'  Remus cleared his throat.  'I imagine you noticed that I stopped you facing the boggart.'

It was an invitation to confront him on the unfairness.  Harry hesitated, and didn't.  'I noticed,' was all he said.  'Sir.'

'Not because I believed you were incapable,' Remus told him.  'Given what you've faced in your short time here, that would be a ridiculous assertion.  I believe you are more than capable, and, if you would like the practise, I'm available any evening this week for you to have a private go at the boggart.  I need to keep it around for the sixth years' next Tuesday and Wednesday.'

He spoke clearly, made his offer without emotion, but Harry looked confused.  It was little more than a tightening of the frown at his eyes, but his mouth stayed lax, lips slightly parted.  After a moment, the boy nodded.  'Yes, I'd like to try it.'

'Any time after supper, then.  At your convenience.'

'All right.  Thanks.'  Harry rocked back on the right ankle, then settled his weight again.  'Why didn't you want me to do it in front of everyone else?'

'Because the boggart makes you face your deepest fear.'

Harry blinked at him.  'You said, yeah.'

Remus didn't think Harry unintelligent, but perhaps it was too much to expect a boy of thirteen to fill all the gaps.  Gently he led Harry to the conclusion.  'I assumed your deepest fear would be Voldemort,' he said.

Harry's eyes widened behind the slight glimmer of his round lenses.  'You said his name,' was the first response he made, followed by a thoughtful, 'Yeah, I guess I might have assumed that about me, too.'

It was Remus' turn to follow.  'I assumed incorrectly, then?'

'I don't know,' was the unhelpful reply, but Harry only looked thoughtful, not sullen, so Remus took that as an unexpected truth.

And, with that in mind, chose not to pursue it just yet.  Harry would seek him out if he wanted to know for himself.  'You can come any time this week,' he said again, and Harry nodded obediently, turned away, and that was that, their first interaction since Harry had been born, since James and Lily had died, thirteen years of secrets and waiting and now more secrets still, and Remus ground his fingers into the ridge of his patellas, gripping until the swirl of ugly emotion in him settled to breathable levels.

Harry had come back.  He stood there, just looking at Remus, hugging his books to his chest, tilted to the right and ready to run.  Remus mustered a smile.  'Forget something?'

Harry freed a hand to rummage in his pocket.  He had an apple.  Slightly bruised from being jostled around on the person of a rambunctious teenager, but still the lovely shade of pinky red they'd been in the bowls of fruit largely ignored by students who preferred their evening pudding laden with sugar.

Harry gave it to Remus.  Their fingers brushed.

'I always have something with me,' Harry said in an odd crushed mumble.  'For when I'm hungry.'

Nothing more than that.  No hints of anything abnormal, not if you had no reason to go listening behind the words.  If he hadn't known what he knew, maybe Remus wouldn't have thought anything of that.  But he did know, and he did listen, and he saw the buried yearning for a miracle hiding behind the glint on those cheap, many-times broken glasses that rode the bridge of his pale nose.

Remus said, 'I'm sorry you know what it's like to be hungry, too.'

Harry's shoulders slumped just the tiniest increment.  'Me, too.  For you.'

Not James.  Not Lily.  Not even Severus Snape, who had fought for and won his place of security, no matter the hardship in it.  A thirteen year old boy, all Harry Potter, a boy surrounded by an ocean of magic and stranded in a Muggle nightmare, alone, for stupid, thoughtless reasons.

I'm sorry you know what that's like, too, Remus thought, and couldn't say, but Harry met his eyes and rose strong above it, and left him with a silent nod of acknowledgement.

 

 

**

 

 

Remus floated a stone through the wave of agitated branches and directed it to tap the gnarl of wood at the base of the Whomping Willow's long scarred trunk.  With a sigh like wind and a rustle of leaves, the Willow settled in place, long enough for Remus to pick his way across the churned soil.  He could smell some dozen layers of scent, but the sharpest were the freshest, three humans, a canine, and another animal.  He hadn't smelled this scent in many years, but it lit fire to the memory in an instant, confirming what he'd already begun to believe.

Rat.

The tunnel was a tighter fit, for an adult, than it had been when he'd crept along it as a teenager.  He knew by the habit of his months teaching at Hogwarts when to duck, where to stick out a hand for the packed dirt walls for balance.  His eyes were more than sharp enough to pick out the up-tilt of the path, and the door barred with silver, ajar, and his ears pricked at voices raised in angry shouting.  That childish hoarse tenor, that was Harry.  That scraping, raw growl, that was a voice he only barely recognised, and knew who it must be, even as it stole away his breath.

He slid his wand to his palm, and stepped into the Shrieking Shack.

'Sirius,' he said, aiming his wand.

The shambling man who turned to face him looked more like a wraith than a man.  Hair that had once been silky and thick fell in matted black tangles over the shoulders of a robe that mouldered at the seams, a cadaverous face too long devoid of hope and blazing now with nothing more than vengeance.  A rictus grin reeked of madness, and Remus tightened his grip.  What a tragic end that would be, to come all this way and succumb to Azkaban's reach on the verge of the truth.

And it was true.  Remus knew, as he swept the room with his wand, and pointed it at the rat writhing against the hold of Ron Weasley.

'You'll be wanting to let go,' Remus told him, and cast the spell to reverse the Transfiguration of man to rat.

Sirius cackled.  It was like a dog's bark, that laugh, and then it was a howl of rage, because the man who scrambled across the floor in tatty grey clothes wailing and shrieking his innocence had launched himself at the children.

'Ron!' Peter begged shamelessly.  'Kind boy, you always cared for me.  You, girl, you won't let them-- Harry!  Harry, your parents, your parents were my dearest friends, I loved them--'

Harry reacted with instinctive violence, kicking Peter away from him as if the sheer repulsion of Peter's touch threw them apart like magnets.  'Don't talk about them,' Harry snarled.  'You're not Scabbers, you're--'

'Yes,' Remus said, and even Sirius stopped stalking after Peter to look at him.  They all looked at him, Peter cringeing and cowering, Sirius panting and clenching his fists, Harry rubbing a knuckle over the wet on his cheek.  'Yes,' Remus said.  'Peter Pettigrew.  Peter was supposed to be dead these twelve years, and Sirius his killer.  But he's here, alive, and the rest of it rather falls into doubt when you examine it.  Peter betrayed your parents.  He was the real Secret Keeper, wasn't he.'

'I wanted to tell you,' Sirius rasped.

'But you didn't,' Remus said.  'Because you believed I'd already turned.'

Sirius closed his eyes, the light falling out of them.  They were dull when he looked up next, embers snuffed out.  'Yes,' he breathed.  'Forgive me.'

'If you'll forgive me, Pads.'  The name leapt to his lips, a remnant of another age, when they'd been very different men.  But he said it deliberately, and had the satisfaction of watching the spark return to Sirius' face, the slow transformation into joy.

Joy and cheerful murder.  'I think we ought to attend to Wormtail here first,' Sirius said.

'Quite right,' Remus agreed.  He flicked his wand, and flung a net of rope at Peter, who set off a scream and a storm of weeping but only thrashed impotently, caught.  Granger's cat pounced, and Peter whimpered as the cat took a swipe at his face with sharp claws.  'There's a crowd of Dementors getting hungry out there.  I suggest we avoid them.'

'Avoid them?  I think a serving of rat stew would satisfy the lads.'

'Undoubtedly.  But I want enough left of him to confess what he did to James and Lily.  And to you.'

Sirius bristled, his hair crackling with wandless magic fuelled by rage.  'Moony--'

'He's right.'  It was Harry, flinching just a little when their attention swerved to him.  But he stood his ground, shoulders squared.  'He's right.  They need Pettigrew, or no-one will believe you.  And they don't ever believe me, really, when I tell them things.  You need Peter to prove it.'

'Harry,' Sirius grated, edging toward the man in the net as if he thought no-one would notice, as if he couldn't stop himself.  'Harry, what he did.  What he did deserves--'

'He'll get it,' Harry assured him gently, and with the effortless courage unique all to him, reached out tenderly and stopped Sirius with a hand against his sunken chest.  'In Azkaban,' Harry said, looking up at him solemnly.  'Where he belongs.'

'Correct, Harry.'

Everyone jumped, and Sirius dropped into a crouch, sliding back into his dog form probably out of sheer startlement.  Harry jumped, backing away, but Sirius darted for the shelter of an infested sofa, tail between his legs.  Dumbledore, climbing through the door with his robes gathered above his skinny calves in one hand and his wand borne openly in the other, smiled knowingly at Remus.  Severus Snape had absolutely no levity about him, his lip curled in a sneer as he glanced at the dog, but once his gaze rivetted to Peter under the net, he stood still and watchful, ready with a curse, and more than willing.

Dumbledore glanced once at Peter, who cried out his name and stretched out a hand.  'The weight of his mind!' Peter sobbed.  'Albus, the weight of his mind.  I had no choice.  Remus, you know, you felt it.  Tell them!  Tell them I had no choice!'

'I might have believed that,' Remus told him.  'If you'd come to me with that story before you murdered thirteen Muggles and framed Sirius for it.  If you'd come to me at all in twelve years.  If you'd come to me even in the nine months I've been here in this school with you.'

'How could I know you were here?  I didn't know you were the Defence instructor--'

'Mr Pettigrew,' Dumbledore interjected almost pleasantly, 'I believe this is what is referred to as "digging oneself a deeper hole".  I suggest we save this conversation for the Aurors.  I believe the Minister of Magic is personally accompanying them.  You may find Minister Fudge is eager to play down the mistakes of the previous administration, Mr Black.  Bargain cleverly and you may be more than pardoned.'

Sirius slid slowly out of his dog form, a man crouching on all fours sniffing for the truth.  'Pardoned?' he whispered.

'Justice is a finer calling than vengeance,' Dumbledore murmured.  'Severus, it appears Mr Weasley is hurt.  Will you escort the children to Madam Pomfrey?  Remus, I think you had better return to the castle as well.  I will wait here with Sirius and Mr Pettigrew for the Minister and his Aurors.'

'They wont... they won't hurt him?' Harry wondered, even as he slid a shoulder under Ron Weasley's arms and hefted him upright.  'Sirius, I mean.'

'I will ensure they do not,' Dumbledore promised gravely.  'He is, after all, your godfather.  I will not have you deprived of another member of your family, Harry, I swear to that.'

The extraordinary change that came over Harry's face was luminous in understanding.  Sirius stared at him, dazed.  So did Remus.

'I don't know if you did that for the right reasons,' he said softly, as Sirius and Harry turned, tentatively, toward each other.  'But, Albus, thank you.'

A wizened hand descended to his shoulder.  'You did well tonight, Remus.  You were right to send for me.  Thank you, for that trust.  I've missed having it.'

Their hobbling progress back up the tunnel could have been avoided with a little Transfiguration or levitation, but neither Remus nor Severus volunteered it, in mute and mutual agreement that they all needed the time to think.  The children were in a huddle together, and Weasley didn't seem to be in undue pain, so Severus took the lead and Remus fell into step with him, trudging back up the tunnel with a weary quietude.  Unexpected, he thought.  That was entirely unexpected.  It went almost... well.

'Oh,' Hermione Granger said sharply, as the sliver of light at the end of the tunnel became a bright oval of silver.  'Professor Lupin, you can't go out there!'

Severus took him in a double-take against the light.  Moonlight.  Instantly his wand was at the ready, aimed squarely at Remus' chest.

'Ah,' Remus said softly to himself.  He knew he'd been missing something.  He turned and found Weasley looking mystified, Granger agonised, Harry-- Harry.  'Harry,' he said.  'Don't worry.  I did as you asked.  I took the Wolfsbane.'

'As I asked?'

'When you came to my office earlier.  You're protected,' he said, including Granger in this, and Severus, who perhaps trusted his own Potionmaking more than Remus' word, and lowered his wand an inch from the ready.  'The Wolfsbane will allow me to retain my human mind.  You won't be in danger because I'll know not to attack you.'

'Wolfsbane?' Harry repeated in a baffled tone.

'Wolfsbane,' Ron repeated, a Pureblood wizard who knew what that meant and paled accordingly.

Hermione bit her lip nearly to bleeding.  'I tried to keep it a secret for you,' she said, eyes damp with tears.

The moon was rising.  It was nearly dark out, and the line of light across the floor of the tunnel was moving steadily to greet their procession.  'You didn't come to my office,' Remus guessed, the pieces slowly coming together into something like a clue.  'You didn't tell me about the... Miss Granger.  You still have your Time Turner?'

'Professor!'

'It's a night for secrets of all sorts,' he told her, watching the moonlight creep toward him.  It struck Severus' boot and came relentlessly on.  'Whatever happens,' he said.  'Thank you.  At least I learnt the truth about what happened to James and Lily.  The time was half past six, Miss Granger.  You may have cause to remember that.'

The Wolfsbane did many things, but none of them made the adjustment from man to wolf any easier.  Pain wracked him, and with an audience of horrified teenagers Remus tried to hold out against it longer than he'd ever done.  He stumbled away from them, trying to get to the mouth of the tunnel, but the reshaping of his hips tumbled him to the dirt and he thrashed with a cry that did not hide the breaking of bone.  His joints popped out of place, then cracked to a new arrangement, and his spine lengthened, a trail pushing free of the small of his back and his jaw stretching with infinite agony, drawing his nose and cheeks into a long muzzle of razor teeth.  Severus herded the children behind him with an arm as Remus screamed, and the odour of magic flooded the tunnel and Remus' senses alike as Severus raised a protective shield about them.

It was over.  Remus shuddered and panted, scratching with his claws til the buzz left his ears.  He shook his head and tottered to his paws.  Severus was a looming splotch of black man-smell against the warmer greys of the night, and the three smaller man-things that stank of fear behind him.  The magic stick was pointed at him, and Remus could smell the spell growing in it, like lightning and cold dead corpse.  He gave his bulk a quick shake, shoulders to hindquarters, and sat so his tail thumped in the dust.  He sneezed at them and licked his chops.  Harry was peering under Severus' elbow, the glass over his eyes sliding down his nose and pushed up with a finger.

Remus barked at him, scrabbled in the dirt for purchase, and lunged.  The spell left Severus' magic stick and struck him as he dodged, but though his back leg went numb he already had the momentum he needed.  He hit the dirt and skidded several feet, jaws snapping, and rolled and lunged again, and the rat squealed as Remus pierced its thin hide with those newly grown fangs.  He spat the limp creature at Severus' feet, and Severus threw down another spell, conjuring a cage of steel.  Then Harry was on his knees beside Remus, trying to touch him.  Remus reared back, skittering away.  He could smell his own blood, feel it hot dripping down his side, infected bad blood.  He whined, and shook his head ponderously back and forth.

'Go,' Severus said, and something else Remus didn't mind, as he was already limping up the tunnel toward the Shack.  He hadn't gone far at all when a dog came bursting out of the Shack, bounding up to him.  He greeted Padfoot with a tackle, and they rolled on the dirt, rubbing noses, smelling all the scents to be smelled, and Padfoot licked his muzzle and batted him with a paw and Remus knocked him flat with a well-placed shoulder to the haunches.  Padfoot's tongue lolled with doggy laughter.

Albus climbed into the tunnel and stood observing them.  Severus was calling something to him, and Albus replied, but Remus could smell human blood, and rose to investigate, nosing at Albus' dangling arm.  His soft whine was answered with a gentle touch to his ears, ruffling his fur carefully.

'Nothing too terrible,' Albus told him, and Remus twitched his ears, knowing mostly what that meant.  'Though I may not have the dueller's reflexes I once did.  Is Pettigrew alive?' he called ahead, and Remus twisted his head to look.

'Yes,' Severus said.  'I'm no expert in rats, but I think his back is broken.'  He raised a brow at Remus, and even in his wolfish form Remus read that as cynicism.  'I don't think he'll be attempting another escape.  If he'd got away, I doubt the Ministry would have hesitated in taking Black into custody.  Better one criminal than none.'

Padfoot barked sharply at Severus.

'And better no werewolves than one,' Dumbledore murmured.  'I don't think the Dementors will notice you.  Slip away, Remus.  Best not be here for this.'

Harry touched him as he passed.  His ears, as Albus had, rubbing lightly.  Hermione Granger touched him, too, more tentative.  Ron Weasley gulped, and dared a quick pat.  'Thought you were coming after us after all, Professor,' he mumbled, and accepted Remus' apologetic nudge with a shudder.

The night was cold.  Unnaturally cold, and the Dementors were indeed gathering near, sensing the use of magic off school grounds and drawn toward the disturbance.  But already Remus could hear the commands of Patronuses being created nearby, and soon a pale glowing hedgehog ambled past, and a shaggy pony, and an impish little monkey swung up the branches of the Whomping Willow, scattering the Dementors with ghostly cheer.  Remus slunk low on his belly and darted for the shelter of the hillside, pushing his weak leg into a distance-eating lope toward the Forest.  He had seven years' experience at losing himself in those dark shadows, and it wasn't long before he was tucked beneath a rocky outcrop, watching for his humans to greet the Aurors and the Minister, and put an end to a long tragedy at last.

When a pair of dirty children crept out of the Forest beside him, he whuffed a greeting.  Harry and Hermione grinned at him.  Hermione looped the chain of her Time Turner about hers and Harry's shoulders, and twisted the magical hourglass.  They vanished on a blink of light, snuffing out the final wave of farewell Harry gave him.  Remus rested his muzzle on his paws, cold and a bit lonely and wishing he'd had dinner along with his dose of Wolfsbane, but content for all of that.  Glad.  Very, very glad.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'They were not half living, or quarter living. They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.'
> 
> ~ Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Morning dew softened the crisp bristle of the scrub grass crunching beneath Remus' feet as he trudged toward the castle.

It was a humid day.  The sun felt close, and the air heavy, and the plain wool robe he'd conjured to cover his nakedness was over-warm.  Remus wiped perspiration from his neck and hairline.  At least til he crested the hill, and came face to face with a Dementor.

It swooped low, the tattered train of its ghostly rags dragging in the grass.  It left icicles in its path, and the brush of its rotting hand over Remus' cheek was cold, corpse-like, revolting.  Remus flinched from it.

'Let me pass,' he told it.  'I'm still a lawful resident of this school.'

The blackness beneath its cowl was absolute.  Whatever it thought of Remus, it didn't rush to obey.  When it finally slid aside, Remus walked a bit faster, heart pounding.  It was a very bad time to be wandless, in the wake of the moon.

There was little activity in the castle grounds.  Just after dawn, Remus hadn't expected much.  Argus Filch was about, somewhere, and the house elves would be at preparations for the day's meals, scurrying at scullery tasks like cleaning the hundreds of fireplaces of the evening's ash and laying fresh logs for magical fires that only used wood for the pleasant scent and the show of it.  Children wouldn't be out of bed til after six.  He had time to make it to his quarters for a wash and a change, to scrub away the evidence of a long night's transformation and sip a desperately desired cup of tea--

Harry was waiting for him on the steps below the Great Hall.

'Professor!' Harry exclaimed, and came clattering down the stairs toward him in the noisy way of overexcited teenagers, but there was none of the joy or weary victory Remus hoped to see in Harry's face, none of the very well-earned contentment of a night spent glorying in a twelve-year belated family reunion.  'Professor, no-one will tell me anything, I don't know what's happening, the Minister is here, they asked me all kinds of questions but didn't tell me--'

'Harry,' Remus tried to slow him, but though Harry checked himself enough to dip to a lower register, none of the panic left his tense shoulders, his hands clenched to fists as if he would fight if he only knew how.

'They won't put him to the Kiss, will they?' he demanded, his eyes wide and dark behind his smudged glasses.

Remus touched before he thought better of it.  Harry's cheek was still dirty.  Faint tracks of sweat, or perhaps tears, stood out in pale streaks.  'That's what happened the first time, isn't it.'

Harry, hollowly, answered, 'Not just the first.'

Remus closed his eyes.  Briefly, just briefly.  It had happened, it was irretrievable.  But the itch behind his eyes slipped out through his fingers, which hooked into the lank hair at Harry's neck and tugged.  He enfolded Harry's bony shoulders to his chest.

He let go the moment Harry began to squirm-- too soon, even for a boy of thirteen on his dignity, strung to the end of his nerves after a night of unaccountable terror and worry.  'I'll go immediately,' Remus promised him.  'If it's the Minister himself, that's better, actually, do you see what I mean?  It's the Minister, not Aurors to bring him back to Azkaban or see him destroyed by the Dementors.'

'Professor-- some of the questions they asked were about you.'

'I imagine the Ministry might start to wonder when the third Defence instructor in as many years gets himself involved in yet another mess at Hogwarts.  It will be all right.  Mr Weasley and Miss Granger are in the Infirmary?  Go rest with them, Harry.  We'll fetch you, I swear, once all the explaining's been done.'

Reluctantly Harry allowed himself to be shooed off.  He did turn back, at the corner, and the way his hand threaded the hair at his forehead and pushed it back on end struck a rueful note of familiarity.  Remus hadn't seen that gesture in many years.

'Sir?' Harry asked.

'Go,' Remus told him gently.  'All will be well.'

It wasn't that simple-- nothing was ever that simple-- but the tight lines of Harry's face eased.  It was what he wanted, what he needed, to hear.  He dipped his head, accepting the reassurance, and left with a lighter step.  Remus watched him go, and had himself a deep breath to stabilise the tipsy knot of queasy premonition in his gut.

Not over, no.  Just beginning.

 

 

**

 

 

'Percy,' Remus said, 'a moment, would you?'

The boy hesitated with the strap of his bag already hanging off one shoulder.  'I have hall duty, Professor.'

'I know.  Please.  Just a moment.'

The bell punctuated his quiet request, and chatter swelled as the fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins made their usual noisy exit from his classroom.  Percy Weasley eyed the door with a distinct line of anxiety frowning between his pale brows.  He chewed the inside of his cheek.

'You're still escorting your sister to all her classes?' Remus asked, foregoing the gentle lead-in he'd been planning.

'Yes, sir.'

'Any trouble this week?'

'Just questions,' the boy replied stiffly.  'You'd think they'd realise by now she won't answer them.'

'What they don't know is far more entertaining than what they do.  It's human nature to speculate.'  Remus was already shaking his head as Percy drew himself up, all five and a half feet of him, to object.  'I don't excuse the rudeness or the mocking.  I'm just wondering how long you can keep up.'

'As long as I have to, Professor.'  Percy inclined his head in a stiff nod.  'I should go, sir, she'll be waiting for me.'

'Not this period.  I've asked Professor Snape to walk her from Potions to Transfiguration.  Please come to my office, will you?  It's your free period, yes?  I'd like to talk to you.  More comfortably than this.'

Percy Weasley was probably the only member of his family who'd never been in trouble, and had the tense look of a boy in unknown territory, perching on the very edge of the chair Remus cleared of books for him.  Remus tapped his kettle with his wand, setting it to steam.  Percy jumped when it whistled, and jumped again when Remus asked him, though he spoke quietly, if he preferred milk or sugar.  Percy sipped once and held the cup with both hands as if a grip of sufficient strength would conceal the tremble in his fingers.

Remus said, 'I don't know if you know this.  I knew all of you when you were children.  Right up to Ron being born, actually.  I was-- out of the country, by the time Ginny came round.'

If that meant anything to Percy, it didn't show in his face.  'I'll pass on your greetings to my parents, sir.'

Remus sighed, and sipped his own tea.  'Please do.  Percy.  I thought perhaps it might help you, to have someone to talk to.'

'Help me, sir?  There's nothing wrong.'

'No?  I heard about the incident with Marcus Flint last week.  You know he was given a week's detention for that.'

'Good,' Percy said, and evidently surprised himself in the doing.  A blush began to creep across his cheeks, and his cup rattled on its saucer.  'What he said to Ginny was vile.'

It had been, and thoughtless besides, but Remus, having heard the story of it from several sources, thought it hadn't actually been malicious.  The trouble had started a week into term, with the hasty publication of a book by  _Daily Prophet_ columnist Rita Skeeter.  Her account of the strange and mysterious opening of the Chamber of Secrets was sketchy at best and pure speculation at its worst, unauthorised and unofficial in its entirety, largely a lurid accounting of the last fraud perpetrated by Gilderoy Lockhart, whose fall from grace and consequent madness had already been the subject of a hundred breathless articles, many of which had born Skeeter's byline.  It vindicated Harry Potter of being the Heir of Slytherin, at least, but Skeeter had made whole cloth of patchy rumours and invented her own tale to introduce Ginerva Weasley to the wider wizarding world.

If Lockhart was the villain of the piece, Harry Potter its hero and Ron his scrappy sidekick, then Ginny Weasley was the damsel in distress.  Skeeter, denied a photograph, an interview, even a quote by the family, had painted a pleasing picture of a sweet, shy charmer, the darling baby girl much fussed over by protective older brothers.  Her lonely descent to the Chamber was a tragic portrait of childhood lost, innocent ruined.  Her rescue at Potter's hands was nothing short of a miracle, all the greater for the impenetrable mystery of what had actually happened in the bowels of ancient Hogwarts.  In Skeeter's eyes, destiny had been made and met in the Chamber of Secrets.

The problem, then, was that Ginny Weasley did not begin and end with that rescue.  She'd had a summer sheltered by her family and, the staff were told in strict confidentiality, considerable treatment at St Mungo's ward for the spell-damaged.  Skeeter hadn't been the only member of the press hot for a story, and when the Weasleys denied them access, the demands had got threatening fast.  Owls had arrived carrying letters of grossly inappropriate proposals, invective, all manner of crazed accusations.  Skeeter's book had satisfied some of that thirst for a juicy revelation, but Percy was seen screening her mail every morning, and Minerva reported that the Weasleys had hired on a solicitor to pursue fines against the most objectionable.  Minerva watched her Gryffindors as best she could, but couldn't quell the curiosity in the halls of her own school.  Ginny was constantly pestered by older students who ought to know better, by youngsters who hadn't any notion of subtlety.  By unanimous vote the teachers granted Percy permission to leave every course early and arrive late, to escort his sister through the halls.  His scowl and his prefect's badge provided her some small measure of protection.

And the strain was showing.  Percy was all over nerves, and the bags under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights.  Anger.  A boy that age shouldn't be that angry.  But it seemed all the students of Hogwarts were angry, these days.  There was too much wrong with the world.

Remus made no attempt to fill the silence.  Instead, he filled Percy's cup, and they sat, with nothing but the faint trill of a bird swooping past the open window or the whistle of the early autumn breeze.  They sat, and bit by bit the hard line of Percy's shoulders eased out of combat readiness, and the unforgiving rigidity of his spine curved.  When Percy at last actually rested against the cushions of the chair, Remus crossed his legs, folded his hands comfortably over his belly, and contemplated the landscape painting over Percy's shoulder, wondering if those hills were meant to suggest Wales or possibly Devon, with that hint of purple in the green.

Percy held out nearly twenty minutes, and, then, in a voice barely louder than a mumble, said, 'I should have seen what was happening to her.'

Remus looked him in the eye.  'So should her teachers have done,' he replied.

The guilty flicker across Percy's pale mouth was proof enough he'd had that thought, too.  'But I'm her brother.  She was my responsibility.'

'You were fourteen.'

'That doesn't matter--'

'It does,' Remus said, not firmly, not flatly, but factually.  'You were fourteen, Percy.  You're only fifteen now.  That is not old enough for the weight of all the blame you've taken on.  There are many, many people at fault for what happened, in small ways and worse ways.  But you didn't hurt her.  Leave that blame with the person who actually did.'

'We're not... we're not allowed to talk about that.  Him.'

'In this office you are,' Remus told him, and sat forward with the kettle to drip a little more water into Percy's cup.  'I want you to bring me the post.'

'Sir?'

Remus added a cube of sugar with the small gold tongs.  'Your sister's post.  I want you to bring it to me.  Every day.  I will open it.  I will read it.  I will pass on anything legitimate, useful, or kindly meant.  I don't want you to see the rest of it anymore.'

'My father said--'

'Your father said for you to read that rubbish?'

'He said...'  Percy faltered.  'He said... he said just that Ginny wasn't to see any of it.'

'Because it's low and vicious and cruel.  Because it's too awful for a child to see that kind of evil in people.'

'Yes!'

'Yes,' Remus agreed soberly.  'It is.  Which is why you won't read it anymore.  I am in my office the hours of half-four to seven.  You can bring it any time.'  He tipped his cup to Percy.  'If you have a few moments, you're always welcome to sit.  I do appreciate the company.'

Confusion faded with comprehension.  Percy looked down, away, anywhere but at Remus.  But he nodded, and Remus didn't press him.  That was as good as a promise.  And if it didn't lift the entirety of the burden, it might at least be a beginning.

 

 

 

'Sirius Black has been sighted in Scotland,' Dumbledore said, and sat at the head of the table with _The Daily Prophet_ folded beneath his hands.

'And Ireland, and Wales, and no doubt in Canada and New Zealand and every other corner of the Commonwealth,' Severus added, and Flitwick tittered.

'True,' Dumbledore agreed, with a slight smile of his own.  'Reports are somewhat unreliable.  But caution dictates we proceed with our responsibilities.  Do we account the school secure?'

'As ever it was,' Minerva said sharply.  'I checked the wards myself.  The castle ghosts have been alerted to the watch.  As you know, there are no current maps of the castle and grounds which accurately depict every possible entry point, but we've sealed the ones we know about and the ghosts will watch for intruders.'

Remus shifted in his seat.  There was a current map, he remembered, thinking of that old rag with sudden fond memory.  They'd wasted a thousand hours on that silly bit of adventure, their most treasured possession.  Peter-- no, James?  Yes, James had lost it, hadn't he, what, sixth year?  Seventh?  It astounded him realise he'd forgot.  The caper on the roof of the Astronomy Tower?  Or the dare, stealing Meloria Greengrass's supposedly silk and imported French panties?  The Marauder's Map was probably long gone, just a blank bit of old parchment probably written over with someone's History of Magic essay.  Would it even work, two decades and more after their first faulty enchantments?  Remus found himself sinking back with a finger to his lips to hide his grin.  Severus caught his eye, and frowned at him, and then tried to pass it off as total accident, glaring in aggressive attentiveness as the Headmaster went on.

'The governors have received requests from three concerned families,' Dumbledore was saying.  'They have ruled that parents may withdraw their children from the school with a full return of the year's fees by Halloween, but without refund after that period.'

'Do you think it likely we'll lose students over this?' Sprout wondered, sitting her bulk forward with a worried brow.

'We cannot pretend the events of the past two years have not affected our reputation as a safe haven for learning.'  Albus gave a minuscule hesitation, then added, 'I have been approached, unofficially, on the subject of withdrawing Harry Potter from the student rolls.'

'Remove Harry Potter?'  Minerva was aghast, and Remus no less so.  But he clocked that not everyone greeted that with horror.  'Why Potter?'

Remus sat forward, wondering at that himself.  'They think Sirius will come for Harry?'

Dumbledore spread his hands in a small gesture emblematic of either helplessness or bafflement, neither reassuring.  'Or,' he said, 'that Harry will feel compelled to seek out Mr Black for revenge.'

'Potter?'

'He's just a boy!'

'He don't even know who Black is,' Hagrid roared, rage successfully overtaking his usual embarrassed attempts to fade into the wallpaper at the staff meetings.  He clanged his head good and proper on the sconce hanging over his sagging loveseat, and fell back with a grunt that ended his temper before it had half caught spark.

Dumbledore looked to Minerva for confirmation, and she was already nodding.  'In fact, he is ignorant of many of the details,' she told them all.  'And I for one wish him to continue in that state.  After last year--'

'Last year, I'm afraid, is very much the point,' Dumbledore sighed.  'Cornelius Fudge is anxious to put the various misfortunes of the Heir of Slytherin behind us.  Some of you are aware that he personally overturned the charge of Underage Magic laid against Mr Potter this summer.  At the time, I applauded his effort.  I did not anticipate the politicisation of Harry's presence at Hogwarts with Black on the run.  Once again, danger threatens the school, and, once again, it appears Harry is at the centre of it.'

'I did predict this,' Sibyl Trelawney reminded everyone in sententious tones, absolutely dripping with showy grief.  She went so far as to rest her wrist against her brow like a fluttering Victorian housewife.  'The poor boy.  Doomed.'

'It might be more useful to predict the actual time we can expect Black to come bursting in with wands blazing,' Severus said, and Trelawney glowered at him.

'The heavens and the signs do not align at command,' she told him pompously.

'How inconvenient.'

'Severus,' Albus chided him gently, and Snape curled his lip.  'As I was saying.  I have only been approached, and I gave my honest opinion that should the school revoke Mr Potter's acceptance it could be nothing less than catastrophic to our reputation, not to mention an abandonment of our responsibility _in loco parentis_ for Mr Potter.  But I cannot imagine that will be an end to the matter.  If Sirius Black is not apprehended swiftly, we must be prepared to withstand increasingly bothersome demands.'

Remus was in a thoughtful mood that evening, a slow-churning funk that had yet to produce any actual conclusions.  It was just past the dark of the moon, a period of the monthly cycle which had once brought him floods of energy, left him fresh and alert, the restlessness of the week before transmuted to productive activity.  He was getting old.  It wasn't energy anymore.  He rarely had enough of that, in truth, rarely slept the night through.  He had swollen joints and a tendency toward headaches and he was tired, always.  Always.  It was only Tuesday and he was already looking with longing toward Saturday, a day without a thousand problems to solve and children to educate and a dozen other worries.

A worry like the one walking toward him, stepping carefully through the marshy weeds to stand on a small dry patch of sand.  Severus Snape met his eyes in the low orange glow of twilight, and said, 'I doubt the Squid remembers you.'

Remus tossed another hunk of bread into the lake water.  The loaf bobbed for a moment, and then vanished, pulled under by a slimy dark tentacle.  'Says you.'

'You can be seen from the--'  Snape glanced back, to the castle on the hill.  It was a glorious thing at night, with the fog rolling in off the mountains and the sky gone all to pinks and purples, the stars like bright pinpricks in a velvet drape.  'Ravenclaw windows,' Snape finished, and his dark eyes slanted again to Remus, lingering pointedly on his rolled-up trousers and bare legs, stripped to just his undershirt, and that hanging damp against his skin.  'They didn't put a bath in your room?'

'You didn't used to do that.  Sneer at everything.  Aloud, anyways.'  Remus gave up the last of his bread to the lake, and whatever denizen thereof that had been taking his offering.  A near-silent splash and a fading ripple was the last he saw of it.  'I'm waiting on a grindylow.  They hunt at night.  Be a good lesson for the third and fourth years.'

'And you're going to wrestle it with your bare arms?'

'You might need my lesson, too.  Never wrestle with a grindylow.  Grip like iron chains.'

Snape sneered.  But not aloud.  Snape watched, and Remus trailed his fingers through the cool black water of the lake.  Idly, he said, 'Will you have to spread the word amongst your Slytherins, to keep your authority with them?'

He heard the other man's low intake of air.  'What?'

'Tell them about me.  Someone will figure it out.  And they'll be after you to eject the Dark Creature on its furry ear.  You can save face by letting it slip, and blaming Dumbledore for keeping me in place.'

'It would be wiser,' was the reply, which answered well enough for the fact that Snape had had similar thoughts already, and put the argument to the Headmaster already, and lost.

'Do it,' Remus said.  'I'll explain it so he understands.'

'I don't need you to cover my actions or my intentions, thank you.'

'You do, rather.  You know what he's like, whenever it comes down to Gryffindor and Slytherin.'  Remus splashed a little at a waterbug that landed on the surface of the lake too near for his shiver of dislike.  'Don't ruin your good relationship with him over something silly like necessity.'  He had an inhale of his own, and released it recklessly, to the night wind and the man he couldn't quite face.  'You've been happy?'

There was a terrible kind of intimacy in it.  A breaking of a barrier that had been there, pressing on him, one of a dozen secrets boiling up in him seeking release.  For all he kept his shoulder turned, it was hard, and liberating, and he laughed, but only because he didn't know what else to do.

Snape shifted about in the mud, and folded his arms tight to his chest.  He was a rigid pole of dark robes and dark hair and scowling lips in the corner of Remus' vision.  'Tolerably,' he allowed at length.

'Severus.'  Water through his fingers, as hard to grasp and hold as the man who stood stubbornly too far away to touch.  'I don't suppose I know what that means.  Tolerably.'

There was a long pause then, long and thoughtful and wondering, maybe.  'You?' Snape asked very quietly.  'You are... happy?'

'I don't suppose I know much about that, either.  Happy.  I'm happy right now.  Talking with you.  We don't do much of that _sans_ shouting and accusations.  It's pleasing, isn't it.'

'In its way.'

'Tell me you missed me.'

The pause this time was even longer.  Excruciating.  He wanted to take it back, but there was no good in it, no use in it, and anyway it was true.  Both the explicit and the implied.

But Severus was stronger than he was, and always had been.  He said, 'Good night, Lupin,' and the only petty victory Remus could claim was refusing to watch him go.  Refusing to blink away the sting behind his eyes.  Refusing to think.  Those were things he was good at.  Those were things he was good at, if not refusing to be stupid in the first place.

 

 

Harry Potter was afraid of Dementors.

Granted most sane people were afraid of Dementors.  Still, it was heart-wrenching, stomach-clenching, to watch the child go white as a ghost and faint clear off his feet.  Remus caught him up before he hit the floor, a cushioning charm that softened his landing at least, and he summoned the jar of ammonium carbonate, pried out the stopper, and whiffed it carefully below Harry's nose.  Harry's thick eyelashes shivered beneath his thicker lenses, and a sliver of green appeared.

'There you are,' Remus murmured, providing an arm at the shoulders to ease the boy upright again.  'Here-- chocolate.  It won't work as well as if this were a true Dementor, but it's better than no chocolate at all.'

'What happened to the boggart?' Harry asked, curling away from his touch.  Remus let go immediately, and Harry hunched in on himself, shoulders curled in protectively, eyes wary and glances sidelong.  He took a small bite from the corner of the bar when Remus pointed to it.

'Back in its trunk,' Remus said.  He removed himself from Harry's personal space, which eased that discomfort; Harry relaxed as soon as he was out of arms' reach.  Remus cleared his throat and carried himself another few steps back, to recline against his desktop.  'Cuppa?  Or water?'

'Water.  Please.'

Remus poured, and let Harry come to him to fetch it.  There was a bit of colour in his cheeks again, but Remus feared its origin was shame, not a reviving temperament.  'Your dad,' Remus said slowly, and that furrowed brow raised immediately.  'Your dad was dead afraid of spiders.'

'Really?'  Harry cracked a grin, half amazement.  'Ron, too.  Well, Ron earned it, out in the Forest.'

'That sounds like an adventure.'  Remus waited, but Harry had gone shy again, and didn't take the bait.  'Your dad had no excuse,' Remus said.  'And Lily, your mum, she was a fearless thing.  Squished one with her bare hand once right in front of James.  That was his boggart.  A squished spider, all twitchy legs.'

They shared a moment of amusement.  Harry was smiling, and Remus smiled, but it didn't last.  Too fleeting by half for a boy his age.

'I heard my mum,' Harry mumbled.  'When they come near me.  Even the fake Dementor.'

'You hear her?'

'Screaming.  My name.'  The waterglass made a rotation in Harry's hands.  'It must be the only thing I really remember of her.'

There was no adequate way to salve that hurt.  Remus wet his lips, and discovered his own fingers twining, pulling restlessly.  'That's what they do.  They pull the happiest thoughts from you, all the good feeling you've got stored up, then they take the black things, the hidden things, the worst memories.  You've got-- you've got rather worst than most.  It's not weakness.'

Harry considered this for far longer than Remus expected.  He only nodded, then, once, and thoughtfully, not accepting but not rejecting it, either.  Solemnly he returned the glass.

'Would you like to try again?' Remus asked.  'I think I know what might help.  Hike that robe up, I want to show you a duelling position you won't have learnt yet.'

They crouched together in the middle of the classroom, practising a runner's launch on knees and ankles and the underhand hurl with their wands that would take best advantage of their upward momentum.  As he'd guessed, Harry did better with a physical preoccupation, and when Remus finally opened the trunk again to let the boggart out, Harry had a narrow-eyed glare of determination to carry him through.  He sprang out of his crouch, wand going rigid in front of him as the boggart formed a glaringly black mist, a hood, a long skeletal hand that reached, reached...

'Ridi--'  Harry's voice faltered.  'Ridiku... ridik...'

'You can do it,' Remus urged, curling his fingers in the box lid, willing him to rally.

But he didn't.  Harry cringed away, cheeks draining of blood and eyes wide and lifeless.  Remus had just enough time to cushion him down as his knees gave out and he slumped to the side.

The boggart turned away from its hapless victim.  The mist reformed to a cool creamy moon, silver light spearing the shadows and creeping toward him.

'Damn you anyway,' Remus told it tiredly, and drove it back to the trunk with a flick of his wand.

 

 

**

 

 

Dumbledore sighed into his sherry.  There were bags of deep grey beneath his eyes, and he looked desperately in need of a good night's sleep.  'Pettigrew must testify, of course,' he said.

If Dumbledore looked tired, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, looked like a man who'd been racked and dragged through the streets.  He reacted to this mild statement as if it arrived in a swarm of wasps, hands flapping madly.  'Trial, trial,' he spluttered.  'Albus, don't set the cart before the-- you can't possibly expect the Wizengamot to-- Pettigrew is-- the _Prophet_ \-- no, no, hardly, too soon, too soon to judge.'

'I should think judging is the point,' Remus interjected, and was flapped at.  'Peter Pettigrew made a mockery of everyone who believed him dead all these years.  It's an undeniable crime.'

'Twelve years past, evidence will all have been destroyed--'

'He exists,' Remus pointed out, feeling a bit stretched thin himself.  'He's alive.  That's proof enough, surely.'

'We only really have Black's word at all, without a confession...'

Remus forced himself to look at the window, not Fudge.  It gave him time to find his calm.  'Sirius was sent to Azkaban without a confession, Minister.  Surely justice demands swift--'

'Justice demands a thorough investigation, Professor, and that's what's needed here, and that's what we'll have, however long it takes.'

'However long it takes.'  Remus pinched his lips tight, biting til it hurt.  'I see.  And Sirius will be free and on remand during this time?  In full possession of the Black properties and accounts, and no further restrictions?'

'A reasonable calendar of check-ins with the Aurors may be warranted,' Dumbledore said, getting to it before Fudge could, and phrasing it as inoffencively as possible, but Remus had plenty of spare offence to take, and did.

'He's not guilty,' Remus told them.  'Men who are innocent have no reasonable reason to "check in" with the Aurors.'

Again Dumbledore intervened.  'Remus,' he said gently.  'Be reasonable.  We cannot expect everything to overturn itself at once.  The more care we take, the more we can ensure Sirius' vindication has the weight of wizarding law behind it.  You would not have him doubted, gossiped about, unable to move amongst society?'

That was so patently a play on-- that was so patently a play on werewolves that it appalled Remus, a bit.  It stole his breath.  Derailed his argument.  He swallowed.  'What will become of Harry?'

'Potter?' Fudge clarified, as if there could be more than one at discussion.  'What about Potter?'

'Sirius is his godfather.  And his guardian, according to the will.'

Dumbledore gazed into his sherry as if a better conversation might be found in its depths.  Fudge dithered, saying very little intelligible, but he was marvellously clear.

Remus interrupted, since Fudge wasn't getting anywhere fast.  He addressed himself to Dumbledore, since anything coherent had come from that direction thus far, and he'd lay good odds any real decisions had been made in that corner, too, not by Fudge.  'You'd send Harry back to a family you've admitted starve and neglect him?'

'I believe the Dursleys are beginning to moderate their behaviour as they accept this situation.'

'This situation? This situation being that someone out there might give a damn if Harry withers away in the care of his blood kin? He has a godfather, it doesn't have to be this way!'

Dumbledore put out a hand.  To quell his protest.  To soothe him, to shut him up.  'There are reasons, Remus. Blood is most important, the blood is everything.'

That was near panic, in a man who made no unconsidered risk.  Like hinting at blood wards in front of Fudge.  The Minister of Magic was as bright as any politician, but it was no less a danger for all that.  More, even.  Who knew but that Fudge would go repeating everything he heard-- no.  No, he could doubt that.  Dumbledore would have some means of keeping the exchange here quiet.  Specially if he came out of it with the shine of shit on him.  'This is bollocks, Albus.  You can't dispense a boy's life, wellbeing.  You know what they do to him.'

'I know what worse might become of him,' Dumbledore said.  'Most important. More important than love. More important than basic humanity and kindness. More important than food.  I believe--'

Remus let the incredulous laugh out past the bile in his throat.  'I believe you've never been hungry in your life, Albus. That child has. For God's sake, when you hold him you can feel every one of his ribs!'

Long pause, then. Long, evaluating, calculating pause.

Fudge said it first.  Quietly, almost without inflection, he asked, 'You've held the boy?'

He didn't go cold. He didn't feel the shiver of ice down his spine. He only felt the heat of rage drain away, and he felt empty after, empty and stripped of the one defence anger might have made him. He couldn't feel anything at all.

'You'd go that far,' he said.

Albus didn't so much as flick an eyelash. Say that for the man. Singleness of purpose.  Fudge wasn't that steady, but the politician was at the fore, and that was canny enough for this, the smell of chum in the water.  Fudge stood straight, suddenly, and those pudgy hands of his came to a steady rest on the brim of his hat.

'A man of your condition,' said the Minister of Magic for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, 'must be absolutely above accusation.'

'Albus,' Remus whispered.

Nothing.  Albus looked at him, looked away from him, and said nothing.

'Condition.  My condition.'

'I hope you don't think me entirely ignorant of what goes on behind these walls,' said Fudge.  'What a happy little fiction you academic types enjoy.  There is a vast difference between knowing what goes on and picking the moment to do something about it.'  Fudge smiled, not that it was necessary to top that smug speech with gleaming white teeth.  'I was prepared to be tolerant about your condition.  Know a few of you.  Not bad sorts, are you, for the most part.  But not everyone is open-minded.'  The hat made a rotation, and Fudge perched it atop his balding head.  'I've heard some interesting information about you, this past night, Mr Lupin.  A number of the boys speak highly of you.  Rather known for your intimate chats alone in the office, aren't you.'

'Albus.'

Dumbledore did him the courtesy at least of meeting his eyes.  He dared to look regretful.  Lovely sentiment.  Sweet of him to care, watching the Minister destroy Remus with a bit of clumsy innuendo.

'Harry isn't one of your soldiers.'  Reckless, in front of Fudge.  Useless, in front of Dumbledore, who counted on weakness and maneouvred around it, who marched his pawns ruthlessly across the chessboard when the play called for a little carnage.  More fool Remus, who had brought himself along knowing it could happen and leaving himself open to a strike.  He touched the point of ache between his eyes, dug his thumb into an eyeball and wished.  Futile.  'He's a boy. He didn't choose your war.'

'No, he did not choose it,' Albus murmured.  'But he will be its centre. He must be.'

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had never been alone.  Had never slept rough.  Never been hungry, never been cold.  Never been anything but the toast of society, a prodigy, a hero, a wise elder statesman.  A teacher.  It would be no hardship for Remus to go back to nothing, the life he'd always known waited for him-- though he'd always imagined the pitchforks and torches would be for his werewolf 'condition', not the other. But if he let Dumbledore and Fudge drive him off, he'd lose Harry. Dumbledore would wrap him up tighter than Rapunzel in the tower and Remus would never see him again. And that he couldn't stand. Not now.

'You won't stop me writing to him,' he croaked. 'And Sirius. He'll write and you'll let those letters through this time, you'll let him have that much.'

Dumbledore had the gall to look on him sadly.  With pity.  He could laugh for that, he wanted to laugh, but it was coming out tears instead, and his hand shook as he scraped a palm over the wet on his cheek.  'Of course,' Dumbledore agreed softly. 'I gave Harry my word I would not deprive him of the last member of his family.'

'I'd write you a formal resignation, but fuck it,' Remus said.  'Minister Fudge.  It is my very great pleasure to inform you I voted for your opponent.'

Fudge's jowls slid into a sour scowl.  'Fat lot of good it did you, Mr Lupin.'

'Better luck next time, I trust.'

It didn't take nearly as long as he'd have liked it to, storming back to his suite.  Only a single flight of stairs and a little stretch of corridor, hardly a trek.  He was all pins and needles now, and the excitement of the night and the ambush in Dumbledore's office had wrung him like a rag.  He only realised after he slammed his door and stood leaning on it that he wasn't alone; Sirius was there, standing beside the bed in Remus' thread-bare terrycloth bathrobe and dripping on the rug and staring at him, lips slightly parted, hands clenching and clenching again.  He did nothing but stare back, really, and so passed a minute, two, maybe three.

Then Sirius licked his lips, and said, 'You look like death on toast warmed over, Moony.'

Remus smiled tremulously, and closed his eyes as the tears started flowing.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was nothing the matter with them except they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil.
> 
> ~ Jack London, The Call of the Wild

The warm breeze fluttered the broad green leaf of the elephant ear plant. It had a scent of salt, or maybe that was sunrise, with its briny hints and beckoning whisper. Remus let his eyes fall closed, blotting out the page of the book open in his lap. He hadn't managed more than a paragraph in an hour, but it was impossible to concentrate. A crime, really, to concentrate, when the mind wanted, needed, to slip away with the breeze instead. He heard a laugh, dimly, like chimes, carrying high and clear from the beach. A woman, girl, more accurately, that sweet tone. He felt no urge to investigate. The sound of the waves was louder without sight to distract him, a distant roar slowly dominating, the wash of water on the rocks, the occasional pass of a boat's engine swallowed up, reclaimed.

Within the flat, a door slammed open.  The sound of something glass shattering on the wooden floors laid the final blow to the morning's fragile calm.

'Shit,' Remus heard, and a groggy ' _Reparo_ '.  'Moony?'

It was tempting to hide.  God knew he was tempted.  But he closed his book, set it aside with a murmured charm against stains and tears-- God knew, too, he'd learnt that lesson well.  He gathered himself with a single stern inhale, and raised his voice in answer.  'Here,' he called.  'On the lanai.'

Sirius came slouching in like a dog already banished from the supper table.  He eased onto the couch, tugging his short terry-cloth robe closed over his lap when Remus pointedly looked away.  'Sorry,' he mumbled.  'Coffee?'

'Instant.  Or tea.'  Remus nudged the plastic kettle on the tray, flicking the switch to bring it back to the boil.  A charm would have heated it immediately, but there was no need for rush; since coming to Phatthaya in Thailand Sirius had spent many mornings far more hung over than he was just now, judging by the lack of squint against the orange glow on the horizon, the early hour, the general lack of moaning guilt.  'You want milk and sugar?'

'Um.  Yes.'  Sirius glanced at him sidelong.  'You do all right last night?'

Remus flicked his nails at Sirius.  'Passable stylist.  He's training up for a job in a salon in America.'

Sirius caught him by the tips of his newly manicured fingers, examining them.  'Blue?'

'Midnight in Paris, he said.'

'Fetching.'  Sirius stroked a thumb along the line of his palm and released him.  'I didn't buy you a boy for styling.'

'You didn't buy me anything.  I paid them on their way out.  You owe me a hundred quid.'

'Hundred?' Sirius squeaked.  'Little weasels, it was supposed to be thirty apiece.'

'That was a VAT for services performed.'

'Yeah, well, that's gross overcharge, then, isn't it, if you didn't sample the services.'  Sirius slumped low on his couch, glowering at the beach beyond them.  'I didn't mean anything by it, Moony, you know I didn't.  Just-- you know.  Relax.  Treat yourself.'

'I don't habitually treat myself to boys,' Remus said, and despite his best intentions it came out frosted with ice.  Sirius cringed away from him, sulking.  Remus closed his eyes and counted to ten.  And then twenty, and for good measure thirty.  He poured a cup of boiling water over a spoonful of Nescafe, and slid it across the tray toward his oldest living friend.

Who sipped cautiously, put on his most mournful look, those long eyelashes casting shadows over perfectly sculpted cheekbones and a mouth bowed red and faultless, and said, 'Denial is a river in Egypt, not a functional coping strategy, Moons.'

His resistance melted.  He swatted at Sirius' shoulder.  'Shut it.'

'You shut it.'  Sirius swatted him back, and peered again at the varnish on Remus' nails.  'You're not still maintaining diplomatic silence on the subject of sex, are you?  You know we all knew.  It didn't matter to a one of us.'

'No, I'm not silent.  I wasn't silent then.  I just wasn't as loud as you lot were.  Are.  You know it's only a curtain in there, not a door.  Either she was that good or you were that drunk.'

That earned him a grin nearly as rakish as it had been when Sirius was eighteen, embarking on a golden life full of promise and potential, not tragedy and waste.  'I'd try her again for surety, but for the life of me I can't recall her name.'

'Whatever she told you was probably fake, anyway.'

'Don't be stroppy.'

'I'm not either being stroppy, Padfoot.'

'You are.  Those right there, strop lines.  Your poor beleaguered forehead.'

It was impossible to be angry.  He didn't wish to be angry.  He wished for a night without surprise visits from nubile teenage prostitutes-- or unsurprising visits, as it was, a habit that had developed all too quickly and looked to set into routine if unchallenged.  But he couldn't deny a man who'd been twelve years imprisoned for a crime he hadn't committed.  To call Sirius lonely was to call Merlin a passing fair magician.  It was nowhere near adequate.  Twelve years without sun, twelve years without touch, twelve years without even the hope that someone on the outside cared what happened to him, with his brother dead in the war and his mother ailing to a bad end and his lone remaining friend convinced of his guilt.  He couldn't deny Sirius anything, and that included the right to manipulate and wheedle and waste his restored fortune on liquor, lavish waterfront flats, a closet full of clothes he could tear off at any moment when he decided to pay for a night's romp in the bedroom.

Couldn't deny Sirius anything, specially when Sirius turned those pleading puppy eyes on him, tickling his palm, just short of twining their fingers together.  No resistance at all.  In that moment he could have been back in the Gryffindor dorms, Sirius sneaking past his bedcurtains in the dead of the night, that smirk hovering there in the corner of his mouth, James' invisibility cloak draped over one shoulder in anticipation of some silly prank, some grand adventure.  He missed it, too.  Sirius had always made him more than what he would have been alone.

'It's all right,' Remus said softly, and Sirius of now smiled at him, a small curling of his lips that spread crowsfeet at his eyes and little parentheticals in his cheeks.  'But no more boys for me, please.  I rather do all right for myself.'

'Well, let's do that then,' Sirius rejoined promptly.  'There's gay bars, they have those now, did you know?  That's what all those little rainbow flags are for.  I think.'

'Yes, they are, and no, let's don't.'

'It'd be a gas to go to a gay bar.'  Sirius sloshed coffee on himself waving his cup about.  'I can be your wingman, suss out the local scruff for you, warm them up with a bit of tit and tat.'

Few words had struck as much horror in him.  Remus sipped urgently at his tea, hoping silence would be sufficient approbation.

It was not.  'Tops,' Sirius declared.  'Now we just have to get you tarted up properly.  Did the salon boy do your hair, too?  It looks good like that.  Really hip and now.'  He caressed a hand through his own wavy locks.  'Reckon I'm all right?  Don't want to look old-fashioned.  Hurt your chances.'

'You know you're gorgeous,' Remus sighed.  'Stop fishing for compliments.'

'I want to be a nineties man, you know.  Which includes accompanying my proud and out gay friend to a bar of his choosing so he can select a lover for the night.'

Remus made a face.  'Sirius.'

'I got that right, didn't I?  Lover.  Life partner?'

' _Sirius._ '

God was taking pity on Remus this morning, or at least sensed the joke had gone as far as good taste could generously allow, because the owl made its appearance then.  'Winfred!' Remus said, standing to receive the bird as it fluttered low beneath the eaves of the porch's angled roof.  'Careful, Pads, he bites.'

Sirius ignored his warning and a moment later retracted a bleeding pointer finger, scowling.  'Whose bloody beast is that, then?  Don't reward it, it bit me!'

Remus popped a tea biscuit in Winfred's snapping beak.  'He'll take payment out of your bones if you don't.  Letter from-- letter from Dumbledore.'  He shifted Winfred onto the back of the bamboo loveseat and turned over the envelope between his hands.  Letter from Dumbledore.  It had been just less than a year since the last one he'd had of these, the fine parchment with the precise red ink calligraphy addressing him.  That last had been a humble request to meet on neutral ground and had presaged a year's employment at Hogwarts.  Too many promises from that meeting had been overturned by circumstance, and his resentment hadn't had time to abate.

Sirius snatched it from his hands as he dithered over opening it, and sliced into it with the eager abandon of a man who'd had even less post than Remus, the past decade.  He fell back to his couch with it, sprawling into the cushions and obliging Remus to move the kettle to block the view of his naked nethers where the robe fell wide.  Remus finished his tea in the time it took Sirius to read, time enough to gather his inner defences and some semblance of equanimity.

Sirius turned bright eyes on him.  'Seems the old gang's getting back together.'

'Old gang?'

'Order business.'

He couldn't be angry.  He couldn't see the shine in those eyes and miss the way those shoulders straightened, spine stiffened.  A mission.  It could only be good for Sirius, a purpose beyond revenging himself on Peter, a chance to redeem himself.  Couldn't deny him that.

'Well then,' he said, and cleared his throat, cleared his heart of regret.  'Best pack, I imagine.  Where are we headed?'

'Albania.'

He sighed deeply.  'Too bad,' he said.  'No gay bars in Albania.'

Sirius guffawed, and it was worth it just for that.

 

 

**

 

 

Sirius stirred a bit, shoulders rolling.  'Leaving?'

Remus stilled him with a touch, and went back to snipping the tangles from Sirius' brittle hair.  Years of mistreatment and malnutrition showed in a dozen ways, not least the starved hollows of his wasted body.  Naked to the waist he was a haunting sight.  His shoulderblades could cut, and every vertebra of his spine was a solid knuckle of bone beneath stretched sallow skin.  Sirius handled a cup of tea as if he didn't quite remember what to do with it, and he protested not at all as Remus groomed him, when once he would have howled had anyone got near him with a pair of scissors.  When the hair was as good as it could get under his inexpert ministration, Remus began on the beard, trimming it down in chunks so it could be shaved away.

'Leaving,' he responded belatedly.  'Yes.  My-- term of employment is up.'

Canny eyes that perfect shade of stormy grey speared him.  'Now the real reason,' Sirius whispered.

'That is the real reason,' Remus lied lightly, and met him gaze for gaze.  It meant nothing and never had, but it had always worked-- Gryffindors.  Courage and honesty had nothing to do with one another, but Remus had had an excellent education in the ways of the world beyond Hogwarts.  'There's a curse on the position, you know.  They haven't been able to keep a teacher in the post longer than a year since the seventies.'

Sirius shifted, a scattering of goosepimples breaking out across his arms and shoulders.  Remus swept him free of fallen hairs and draped the duvet from the bed about him.  'Drink your tea,' he reminded Sirius, turning away to lather soap in his shaving cup.  'That will warm you fastest.'

'Remus.'

To hear his name in that voice again.  He had missed it, when he'd allowed himself to.  Any of their voices, James in his cheery baritone, usually hollering cheerily, Lily in her sly alto that somehow always sounded of a smile.  Peter, who'd sired their Marauder names, the most vivid imagination amongst them, always a story at his fingertips.  Sirius.

'I should have written you,' Remus said, before he could think better of it or take it back.  How was that for honesty.

Sirius didn't answer immediately.  He cradled the tea beneath his chin.  'You believed what you heard,' he mumbled.  'Why wouldn't you.'

'Because I knew you.  Should have known you.'

'You knew the rest of the Blacks, too.  Reg hadn't been dead a week.'

Yes, Regulus.  That had been part of it.  Word had come from one of the portraits in the Black house.  Remus had gone to the funeral, after.  There had been so many funerals in the wake of that fateful night in Godric's Hollow.

He discovered his fingers rubbing the line of the old rope scar at his neck, and deliberately busied himself.  Sirius tilted his chin back for the brush as Remus applied lather to his face.  'You can take up your title and property now.'

'Mother's probably haunting Grimmauld Place.'  Sirius scrunched his nose at the rasp of the razor, drawing a careful furrow in the white foam and leaving clean hairless skin behind.  'Father would have buggered off, but that mad bitch would never let a descendant shift so much as a candlestick.  I want to ask Harry to live with me.'

There was no change in tone, and it took a moment for the words to catch up with Remus.  'Live with you?'

'I know he's got a place with Lily's sister's family, but it's not a magical household, is it?  Harry should have grown up a wizard.  Have you seen that house?  Muggle doesn't even begin to describe it.  In Surrey.  Even the name is common.'

There was no good way to say it.  Nor did he have the heart to pass it off to Dumbledore, not for that canny old wizard's sake, but for Sirius.  Sirius would have enough hard truth to deal with, even free and vindicated.  There were so many things... too many things, and he had to suck in a breath against an overwhelming wave of dread of it.  He was braver than that.  And Sirius needed him to be.

'Don't ask him just yet,' he managed, and scraped another patch clean.  'He hardly knows you.  Get to know him, without the urgency.  And clean up Grimmauld Place first, if you want him to have a good experience of a magical home.  That crotchety old house elf is probably still there, isn't he?  Not to mention any traps or who knows what that can only be disabled by the Black heir.'

Sirius' eyes fell.  But he heaved a deep breath and went right into the next thought.  'Black heir.  I could make him the Black heir.  It was always meant to be him, you know, I talked to James about it, when Reg-- when Reg died.  There just wasn't time.'

'That's a grand idea.'

'You're going to tell me to slow down on that, too.'

'Talk to him first, is all.  Give him time to get used to the notion.  He's only known about you this year, and for most of it he thought of you the way we all did.'

'I've had twelve bloody years of getting used to things, Moony, I want to act on them!  They've been crowding my head, I didn't have anybloodything else to think about in that pig sty.'

Sirius' ringing shout faded quickly.  Remus felt it drive through him like a percussive force, leaving numb shock in his wake.  And then Sirius' face crumpled like tissue, and he grabbed at Remus, grabbed him with fistfuls of shirt and arm and yanked him in.  Sirius buried his soapy face against Remus' chest with a dry sob.  Remus cradled him helplessly, stroking his damp hair, his taut bony shoulders.  Tears pricked his own eyes, but he didn't let them fall.  Sirius needed someone to lean on, not someone crippled by empathy.  He would be the strong one.

'Hush now,' he said, when Sirius had already been quiet a good long minute, and eased away.  He tilted Sirius' head back to look into his eyes.  'Better with me than with Harry, eh.'

Sirius made a spasm that might have passed for a smile.  'Don't want to fright him.  He looks just like James, doesn't he?'

'Yes,' he said, though that, too, was a lie.  Harry had more of Lily in him than his father, despite the hair and glasses.  But whatever he'd inherited by birth had been measured and fallen short against a hard life in their shadow.  Harry was all himself.  'Right.  Let's get you finished shaving, and dressed, and you'll feel a new man.  You can meet Harry as yourself, the way you want him to see you.'

'You always know the right thing to say.'  Sirius covered his wrists.  'Remus?  Come with me.  Please.  I don't want to be a-- without you-- I thought about you all these years, too, you know.  What I would say to you if I ever saw you again.  And I want to know where you've been, what you've done.'

That was a kind offer and a timely one, considering he'd been booted from board and post not an hour ago.  He could only nod, and Sirius made a better show of his smile, this time.  Remus wiped a bubble of soap suds away from his lower lip.  'Maybe somewhere with sun,' he suggested.  'Sun and warmth and breeze and palm trees.  Somewhere it's always summer and never winter.'

Sirius shivered.  'Never winter,' he repeated hollowly, his cheeks going gaunt and shoulders hunching forward.  'Never winter, never night.'

It was Remus' turn to attempt a smile.  He held it til it passed for real.  'Come on,' he said gently.  'Fudge first, to sign the parchment, to send Peter away where he belongs.  Then Harry.'

'Then Harry,' Sirius said, and nodded firmly.

  

 

 

'But I don't understand, sir.'

Remus had to look away.  His throat was too tight for speech, anyway, and he needed to think, needed to choose his words carefully.  'Harry,' he said, and folded his hands in his lap to stop them trembling.  'It's not good-bye forever.  But Sirius needs... Sirius needs time.  Azkaban can cause horrible damage in weeks, months, much less years.  Sirius was there twelve years.  He wouldn't be fit company.'

'But I don't see why you've got to give up teaching to go with him.'

It tore at him.  He'd known it would, but the reality left him almost breathless with ache.  'It's not for wanting to leave you here.  I swear.  With all my heart, I wish I could do both.'

Harry fell silent.  He wasn't ready for those words, no more than any thirteen year old boy on the cusp of something not quite manhood, but those rough years of straining, hurtling, thrashing toward it.  Thirteen was too old for the coddling of a pseudo-father figure, too old not to reject that almost promise of something like love.  Albus had been too right when he'd said Harry needed a mentor, but he hadn't at all guessed the depth of the need.  If Harry had had it before now, it wouldn't feel so much like an abandonment, and Harry too old not to bluster through it with anger plastered over the hurt.

Harry was far too collected when Remus could bear at last to look at him.  'He's not going to Saint Mungo's, then?'

'I think he wants a bit more sun and freedom than that.  We might travel a bit.  He always meant to see the world, when he was younger.  Before the war.'  Remus made a cautious offer.  'But he's already thinking of you.  He's going to invite you to the Quidditch World Cup this summer.  A new broom and tickets to the Cup, he's as mad for that game as you are.  And he'll be inviting your friends Ron and Hermione too, to apologise for the fright they had in the Shrieking Shack.'

A bit of light leavened the gloom in Harry's downcast gaze.  'The World Cup?  Really?'

'Really.'  He wet his lips.  'I know it's not the same as leaving the Dursleys...'

Harry's face drained of all expression in a heartbeat.  'I didn't expect that, Professor.'

No.  He wouldn't have.  He wouldn't have allowed himself to hope for it, because hope dashed was all the more agony than hope never allowed to breathe.  Maybe next year, Remus wanted to say, ached to promise, but he couldn't, for reasons thirteen was not old enough yet to hear.  So he said nothing, and Harry didn't ask for it.

'And I've written up some things for you.  This is a list of books, less Hermione's sort of thing than yours-- more like guides, really, some advanced Defence spell learning you're more than ready for.  You can get some in the library, the rest at any bookstore, Flourish and Blott's certainly.  You can write to me with any questions, of course.  This is an outline, I took the liberty, a few suggestions for extra study you might undertake if you want to specialise in Defence.  You have a talent for it.'  His voice threatened to hitch.  He wouldn't allow it.  'It's been-- really been the pleasure of my teaching career to work with you.'

Something was building.  Harry took the parchment sheaf from Remus, but something was building in him, as he ran a thumb down the length of the page and bunched his shoulders, his breath coming in strange controlled bursts.

'Harry,' Remus said, just as Harry made his decision, and put his head high in the air and his green eyes level with Remus' and told him, 'I can talk to Minister Fudge about reinstating you.'

'He would want something in return, and you wouldn't like the price,' Remus answered softly.

'I'd pay it.  For keeping you at Hogwarts.'

'I endangered students.  Fudge isn't wrong to want me gone.'

'You took the Wolfsbane!'

'Only because you came back to warn me.'

'It worked out,' Harry said stubbornly.

'The third time.'

Harry clenched his jaw.  'Dumbledore should have fought for you.'

He couldn't lie about that.  Even to soothe Harry's mind; the hurt was too recent, and maybe he'd fallen into the trap of hope, himself, believing Dumbledore would fight, if it came to that.  'Dumbledore puts your-- safety-- first,' he said, the barest words he could manage on that subject.  'He has reasons for everything he does.  Those reasons may seem...'

He didn't finish, and Harry didn't press him.  Slowly, his head fell low again.

A knock at the door saved Remus from the lump sitting hard and low in his chest.  'That'll be Sirius.  He'll want some time with you.  I'd better get to packing.  Seems the mess in here just kept growing this year.'

'It's probably all Lockhart's rubbish.'  Harry scrubbed a finger under his nose and stood abruptly.  But once on his feet, he hesitated.  'I don't know if anyone told you.  I cast the Patronus.'

'Last night?  When?'

'The second time.  There were a lot of Dementors, dozens of them, they were at the Lake and Sirius and I...'  Harry savaged his lower lip with his teeth.  'Is it okay to talk about those other times?'

'Because of the timeline?  Yes, I think so.  They happened and were writ over, anyway, so there's no changing them again unless someone goes back, and we'd go on not knowing if they did-- yes, it's horrid confusing.  But safe to talk about.'

Harry tugged at an ear this time.  'Anyway, then.  Dementors at the Lake.  And I cast the Patronus.  It was a stag.  Like my dad.'

Remus inhaled slowly.  'It sounds beautiful, Harry.'

'It was.'

'Thank you for telling me.  I'm glad to know that.  Very glad.'

'You were a great teacher.'  Harry whirled about almost as soon as he'd said it, and threw open the door.  He nearly rebounded off Sirius in his rush, mumbling an embarrassed apology and continuing his trajectory out into the hall.  Sirius watched him go, mouth open in a call that he never spoke.  Instead he looked at Remus with brows drawn, worried.

'He'll be all right,' Remus said, thought, hoped.  'If he brings it up, you're going to have him and his friends to the Quidditch World Cup in August.'

'I am?'

'You don't mind?'

'No.  Brilliant idea.'  Sirius leant toward him, then back to the hall, toward Harry.  'You all right?'

'Yes.'  He summoned a smile.  'Take him for a walk around the Lake.  You can show him that spot where we buried the trunk.  No-one ever... no-one ever dug it up.'

'I think it's full of lad mags and dung bombs.  We buried it to evade capture by Filch, didn't we?'

'I'm not a teacher any more.  I can corrupt the students at will.'  Thinking of corruption, Remus turned to his desk.  Dumbledore had returned the map, and perhaps expected him to do what he intended to do now, but there was a point at which imagining the old man's motives transcended usefulness into paranoia.  'Wait, Sirius.  Give him this.  It should come from you.'

'The Marauders' Map?'  Sirius touched its cracking folds wonderingly.  'Yeah, he should have it.  We weren't ever that serious, were we?  We used this old thing for such petty little games.  Sneaking to the kitchens.  Pranking the Slytherins.  We were stupid gits, weren't we?  Not miniature sleuths on the trail of a murderer.'

'He's a good boy,' Remus said.

Sirius caught at his hand.  His grip was strong, too strong; it hurt.  It was a welcome hurt.

'Go on,' he managed, and Sirius waved as he turned out to the hall, but Remus pressed his hand to the ache in his chest and sat, alone, watching the sun set out his window, the moon a pale ghostly orb hanging high in the twilight sky.

 

 

**

 

 

They bought an international Portkey at a very dodgy bodega in a seedy back alley.  The fat little Lannathai witch who sold it to them glared suspiciously the entire time, as if she suspected they might rob her dubious wares.  For once, at least, it was Sirius who drew most of the shady eye; poking at everything in that typical mix of inquisition and ennui, his tropical linen shirt hanging open over his tanned chest and the knotted hemp necklace with charms some forgotten girl on the beach had given him their first week, his sandals slapping at the muddy boards as he wandered the premises.  Remus, unremarkable in denims and a conservative polo shirt, went almost unnoticed til he allowed his wand to be seen in its sheath beneath his sleeve.  The witch calmed considerably when she determined they were kith of a kind, and changed his Galleon for two sickles and a knut without comment.  She even directed them with an indifferent flap of her hand toward her back door, which let out on a dirty little square of space the size of a closet, hung low with tatty faded lanterns and a fritzing electric light that went out abruptly, plunging them into darkness.  Sirius rested his hand alongside Remus' on the plastic Buddha statue, and they vanished.

'Mountains,' Sirius said, when the whirling and twirling had plopped them out to a dizzy stop at an evidently long-abandoned bus stop in the Valbona Valley of the Alps.  'Forest.  Suppose it was too much to ask, that it be the beach.'

'We won't be here long.'  Remus turned a slow circle.  'I don't think this is Albania.  I think it's _The Sound of Music_.'

'What?'

'Muggle,' Remus said absently.  'A film about a well-to-do family of singers escaping the Nazis.'

Sirius shook his head.  'Muggle Studies was an age ago, Moony.'

'It'll take us an age to find a hotel.'  Remus squinted against the sun.  'What's the name in the letter?'

Sirius consulted Dumbledore's notes.  'Guesthouse Kola Gjoni Rragam.'

To collect a memory, and then into the forest of the valley, to search for a Dark artefact the Headmaster had neither named nor described.  It had the earmarks of Order business, right down to the needless secrecy and overcautious refusal to commit to actually doing anything.  But that was an old bitterness, and Remus would keep his opinion to himself.  Sirius wanted an adventure, and they could have that regardless of the future.

Sirius stuffed away Dumbledore's letter and jingled the Muggle coins in his pocket.  'Fancy finding out what Albanian beer tastes like?'

'It never occurred to me we wouldn't,' Remus sighed.

They had a fair bit of walking, and twice they Apparated to ease the distance up the road, though never farther than they could see and confirm.  Sirius used magic with abandon, flicking his wand like a first year and conjuring everything from sparks to Transfigured birds that sprung up with fluttering wings to dive at the mice and moles that scurried the landscape.  Remus indulged him a few times with a race, their magicked hawks, one light and one dark, zipping about overhead only to fall back to rocks or tree branches when the spell faded.  It warmed him to see Sirius so lighthearted, but he knew from recent experience it was only the bright side of the moon.  It would fade as readily as an expired charm, and then the darkness would follow.

They donned jumpers from their single shared rucksack and Sirius wore himself a blister with a new pair of hiking boots purchased on a whim from a flash store back in Thailand.  The cool air was welcome, so far as Remus was concerned-- he liked the sun for Sirius' sake, for the brown tinge it put back in his pale cheeks, but for himself he preferred the autumn.  The wind ruffled the hair at the back of his neck, a pleasant tingle, and the sun was a distant sort of warmth, not a beating baton hammering down on him.  The moon was a bare sliver in the sky, only the faintest edge of the arc, hanging low over the green-carpeted mountains ahead.  They reached the Guesthouse within a few hours' trek, and Sirius flirted expertly for a man who spoke no Albanian and firmly refused to recognise that a woman fifty years his senior might not find his flirting as adorable as Sirius expected her to.  They were provided a large iron key with a worn tag directing them to Room 204, and a menu for a breakfast Remus strongly suspected would consist entirely of pickled offal, if his nose led him correctly.  Sirius bounded to the sagging bed beneath a small draughty window, took a flying leap.  The floor creaked alarmingly.  Remus moved to stand by the wall where it might be more stable.

'Think Dumbledore'll mind if we wait til morning to complete this very important task?' Sirius asked, hurling a lacy pillow at Remus.

It hit him in the chest.  Remus caught it on the way down.  'Waited this long, whatever it is.'

'Stop pretending to be more muscular than me.  Sit down before you fall down.'

Remus dropped their rucksack into the battered chair in the corner, and sat on the edge of the bed.  'I'm not entirely sure it's meant to be fun, though.  Two of us, I mean, being sent out here.  Dumbledore's got agents of all stripes, not to mention travelling himself if it's something that really requires secrecy.'

'Oh, Moony, you're not _thinking_.  Stop.  I beg you.'

Remus flicked Sirius in the ear.  'Berk.'

'Double berk.  I know it's not meant to be fun, but there's no saying it's meant to be a drag, either.'  Sirius stuffed a limp and slightly dingy pillow behind his head.  'You must've done stuff like this the last few years.  Missions for the old man.'

Remus turned his gaze to the lone painting hung on the whitewashed plaster walls.  It was an inept landscape, the horizon point too low and the sky too empty but for one lopsided mountain peak.  'No,' he said.  'I was in France for a time.  Then on my own here.  There.  England.'

'On your own.'  He couldn't make out Sirius' tone without a glimpse of his expression, but that wasn't a tempting proposition.  'I suppose that's how you've always wanted it, at least.'

'Not wanted.'  He yanked the rucksack near and opened it, pulling out their nightclothes and toilet kits.  'It's nothing very exciting, Sirius.  It doesn't sound as though this "mission" will be all that exciting either.'

'Moony--'  An unspoken curse hovered at the end of that.  'I just want to know you.  The grown-up you, who you are today.  You don't let me in anymore.'  He heard Sirius swallow, and then he said, 'If you need more time to think of me as innocent... I suppose it's one thing to know I didn't do it, another to feel it...'

'Padfoot.'  He put a hand on Sirius' shoulder, and this time met his eyes willingly.  'I don't need more time to be anything other than glad.'

'Good, then.'  Sirius lay there breathing, looking at him.  No, eye contact and expression weren't enough.  Remus couldn't read him.  To know a man who'd been twelve years wrongfully imprisoned would take more than a few weeks lolling about the beach.  When Sirius slid a hand up Remus' sleeve up to his collar and used it to pull him down, he was too shocked to stop himself recoiling.

Sirius rolled over and buried himself to the nose in the pillow.  'Feel a kip coming on,' he said casually, and Remus stared at the back of his head, pulse thundering.  Had he mistaken it?  Only he'd been sure Sirius was about to kiss him.

It took a long minute to work up the saliva for a swallow.  His voice came out cramped and small.  'Rest up, then.  I'll, uh... I'll ask our hostess where we can find Mr Memory.'

Sirius yawned and settled deeper into the bed.  'Excellent plan, Monsieur Moony.'

'Right.'  Remus stood, swaying on his feet, wondering.  Sirius said nothing else, however, and there was really nothing else Remus could think of to add-- so he didn't.  He was careful to let the door latch soundlessly as he departed.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '...in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness -- faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain.'
> 
> ~ Jack London, Call of the Wild

'It's late,' a low voice remarked.

Remus looked up from his marking, realising only then he'd developed a crick in his neck.  He rubbed it with a wince, and rubbed his dry, strained eyes for good measure.  'Time?'

'Quarter past midnight.'  Severus ventured past the door, a candle floating alongside him bringing an orange aura of warmth.  It saturated his dark robe, his inky hair, his eyes.  Severus trailed a finger over the pile of essays Remus had been at reading for several hours.  They were liberally marked with red.

'Rather a lot of nonsense,' Remus commented, sitting back.  His spine popped as he settled himself wearily.  'I think our scheme was flawed.  Very little original research, but even the ones who did go looking for additional sources only came across the same Ministry-sponsored rubbish.  Did you know only a head-shot will kill a werewolf?  And only if it's fired under the full moon.  How that will help when a werewolf can transform itself at any time with sufficiently negative emotions or by invoking Satan--'  Severus snorted at this.  'Yes.  One of the sixth years actually cited, quotha, numerous Hollywood films.  But I think this is my favourite.'  He dug for one of the fourth year essays.  'Quimby Pendleton.  Here's the best bit: "Although it makes for good drama, a rapid transformation into a hulking beast is impossible for one important reason: where does all the extra body mass come from?  Proteins, fats, sugars, vitamins, water, all the materials required for cellular growth and energy production would have to either be stored in the body in massive amounts or consumed orally as the victim transforms.  Even if the person was bloated and obese with stores of extra body mass, transforming within the span of minutes would produce so much cellular heat that it would literally cook the victim to death.  Even the 8 to 14-hour transformation into a zombie causes irreversible brain and organ damage from the high heat production."'

'Muggles,' Severus guessed, with a faint sneer.  'What is a "zom-bee"?'

'You never saw _Night of the Living Dead_?'  Remus rolled Pendleton's scroll and tossed it back to the pile.  'Classic.  Sort of... inferi, re-animated dead, but with an insatiable appetite for braaaains.'

'Hogwarts should be safe from their hordes, then,' Severus said, with such perfect dry irony that Remus was startled into a laugh.

The faint creak and whine of the old castle was the only sound between them for a time.  Hogwarts had its own kind of living nature, stones a thousand years old permeated, sustained with magic groaning here and there with the weight of centuries.  There was little proper air flow, and the Staff Lounge in particular could be bakingly hot or bone-chillingly frozen depending on the angle of sunlight against the tall arched windows that lined its west-facing wall.  The house elves kept the fireplaces well-stoked, but the cold had crept in, and there was frost on the panes now, just visible in the light of the waning moon.  Remus absently massaged the ache in his neck, but it was one pain amongst a dozen.  Torn tendons, knitted back together with magic; broken bones, re-formed to a man's once more; a sinus cavity shaped and re-shaped and somehow clogged, flu-like, yet overly sensitive.  He could smell peppermint and thyme, could smell the grease of the roast chicken from supper, a hint of sour milk from somewhere.  On Severus it was smoke from the flames in the Potions Lab, the tarry pitch of bubotuber pus, exotic eucalyptus, cloves.  At two days past the full moon Remus was not yet human enough to find it pleasant or unpleasant, only naggingly present.  Unrelenting.  He could shut his eyes against the pain of the candlelight, but he couldn't stop breathing it in, the thousand years of Hogwarts history that threatened with every inhale.

He said, 'Did it pacify your Slytherins?  Assigning the essays?'

'I believe so,' Snape confirmed.  'The elder Nott and MacNair's son both sent owls home within an hour of receiving the assignment.  Of the younger years, I believe the Carlyles and Dugmores received an alert from their son and daughter, respectively.'

Remus said nothing about the revelation that Severus spied on his students' correspondence even in times of peace.  'No-one fourth year or younger?'

'No.  Their textbooks are rather less informative on the subject.'

'Millicent Bulstrode's essay wasn't bad.  She had more insight on the subject that I would think casual reading would provide.'

'She's clever enough,' Severus admitted reluctantly.  'She hides it well and it won't do her much good in life.  She'll be a breeder of sons with no professional life.'

The sour milk smell intensified.  Possibly it was psychosomatic.  'Hermione Granger turned in an extra three feet.  Likely she'll have guessed.'

Severus performed a little eye-roll for this, smearing a drip of wax from his floating candle into the tabletop.  'I have yet to observe her actually following directions.  She could take a lesson or two in discretion from Miss Bulstrode.'

'She has as much to prove in other directions.  Her only chance for a good marriage in Wizarding society is to be so exceptional a Pureblood family accepts her over their natural reluctance.'

'She's a Gryffindor and a Muggle-born.  That thought has never entered her head.  Or,' Severus grumbled, 'if it did, it was immediately crowded out by statistics of some obscure topic from her latest book.'

'I'd be surprised if she hasn't thought of it.  She's been in the Wizarding world long enough to see how things work-- and her closest friends are Weasleys and Potters.  You can't tell me half the prejudice Harry faces isn't to do with his mixed blood.  Any Pureblood child who'd faced down the Heir of Slytherin and battled a basilisk single-handedly would have been feted by the press and venerated to saint-like status.  Hell, fifty years ago they gave Tom Riddle a trophy for falsely thumbing Hagrid's acromantula, say nothing of actually stabbing the thing to the death.'

He had cause to be proud of that sally as Severus glowered at him.  If Snape denied it, he was baldly lying in the face of egregious evidence, and if he agreed he'd observed it for himself he as much as admitted he was part of Harry's persecution, and Tom Riddle's elevation to the most fearsome Dark Lord in a century.  But it was late, and pride didn't tend to last long in the light of the moon.

He put his hand out on the table, palm up, fingers imploring.  Severus looked away, looked anywhere but at him, his mouth tight and pursed and then slack with surrender.  He took Remus' hand in his.

Their kisses were uncertain.  Out of practise.  They bumped noses, bit too hard, stuttered apologies swallowed up impatiently.  Severus must have added a button to his kit for every point he took from Gryffindor, there seemed to be a million of them, and Remus struggled blind with a half dozen false starts before he found a path to skin.  It was a softer body than he remembered, a little extra flesh around the midsection where youth had resisted it in years before, but he counted that comely in contrast to his own wasted frame.  He looked like a man who'd been living hard in the street, he felt like a man who'd starved for so long he didn't know contentment anymore.  Severus played hesitant thumbs over the stark outline of Remus' collarbones, fitted cringingly to his jutting shoulderblades, cupped his hipbones and murmured something too quiet to properly hear against his cheek-- at least Remus didn't listen too closely, and Severus didn't press him.  He dragged the cushion from his chair to the floor, and knelt on it between Severus' knees, his forehead nestled against a heaving belly, hands carding his hair as he brought Severus to life with lips and tongue.

This was out of practise, too, but curiously the urgency fled as soon as he realised it was mutual.  They had been, what, twenty-five the last time they'd done this.  A lifetime ago.  They were different people, they were changed, they were wiser-- not so wise to avoid entanglement, but maybe wiser to the consequences, less afraid of them.  It didn't hurt.  That was something remarkable for the two of them, wasn't it; it didn't hurt.  He sighed, and relaxed, let himself properly lean on Severus, pressing lingering kisses to mark his place, roaming where curiosity took him, not desperation.  Severus stroked his ears, his neck, drifting down the loosened collar of his shirt to caress, not direct him.  His senses were filled with it, every touch electric, every scent intriguing, every taste unique.  He let it rest on his tongue, thinking about the full shape of it in his mouth, the way it felt alive and twitched in reaction to every breath.  He swallowed around it, and Severus groaned softly, somewhere above his bobbing head, and it was so indelibly intimate that he shuddered, grabbing for his crotch and squeezing, wringing every last frisson from it.  He was almost disappointed when Severus came, spunk escaping at an inopportune pause to breathe, dripping onto the carpet before he could catch the rest with a final lick.

'Stand up,' Severus said thickly, and with a few creaks he did, straddling the nearest leg and bracing himself with a hand on the back of the wingback Severus sat in. He stooped for a kiss, but Severus ran two cool palms into the folds of his trousers, brushing them off his hips, and tried to slip a finger into his cleft.  Remus knocked his hand away reflexively, removing himself with shaky haste.  It doused his arousal like a frozen wind, chilling him in an instant.

A strange look came over Snape's face then.  'Still?' he asked.

'Don't ruin it, Severus.'

The night quiet was restored as Remus buttoned himself back to passable composure.  He ran a hand through his hair, ragged and wild-feeling after being mussed so.  He settled himself back at his desk, took up his quill, and unrolled a fresh essay.

'Anna Pucey,' Severus said then, and turned his head away.  'Ravenclaw sixth year.'

'What?'  His fingers felt oddly numb.  He flexed them in his lap, adjusted his grip on the quill.  'Pucey.  Right.  Yes.'

'Bears watching.  Family were neutral in the war, but they have business ties with prominent Death Eaters now.  Her brother is in Slytherin House.'

'Adrian,' Remus hazarded, and Severus nodded.  'Big lad?  Quidditch team, isn't he?'

'No mind of especial talent, at least that he's willing to display.  It won't be him.  He goes straight to Poppy Pomfrey from the Express every year with a summer's worth of injuries and ailments.  No love lost there, and nothing owed.'

Remus glanced up from circling a confidently stated factual inaccuracy in Ron Weasley's essay.  'He's getting help?'

'Whatever help can be got.'

'Very little, you mean.'

'It is not Hogwarts policy,' Severus said, low and poisonous and immensely weary, 'to interfere in matters of home and hearth beyond these walls.'

That policy had sent Sirius Black home to a mad mother who'd greeted his sixteenth birthday with an Unforgiveable and proudly sent Regulus to brand his arm in service to a Dark Lord.  That policy had done nothing to aid Remus when his father had informed him he wasn't welcome to return any longer.  It had left Severus in squalour in the same town as well-to-do middleclass Muggles, and relentlessly bullied by his Pureblood fellows for his poverty.  It stranded Harry Potter in a well-to-do middleclass Muggle home that starved him like a workhorse, determined to strip every last bit of will from him.

Red ink dripped from his quill, a fat little drip of ink that covered nearly the entirety of the word 'Aconitum', misspelled.  Remus didn't blot it, and it soaked through the parchment.

'You didn't let me,' Severus said.

'I didn't let you what.'

'Return the-- favour.'

'Did you want me to apologise for the blowjob?' he asked, and refreshed the quill in the ink pot.  'Or allowing you to out me to Slytherin House?  I think I'll be a few hours finishing these yet.  I thought Gilderoy Lockhart was the DADA teacher last year-- his book on werewolves wasn't actually that bad.  You'd think a few would have read it.'

He didn't watch Severus let himself out.  He was only sure the other man had gone when the light dimmed.  He'd taken his candle with him.  He flattened his hands to his belly, lower, but only for a moment.  The smell of sandalwood, that was the elusive spice lingering in Snape's wake.  It put butterflies in his gut, slow to fade.

He didn't read another word that night, but stayed sat in his chair for hours, staring unthinking at the blank windows, waiting on the dawn.

 

 

**

 

 

He woke in bed with a dog.

Padfoot, in point of fact, though in a haze of gritty eyes, a sore neck, and cramped sharing on the mattress, Remus was at first a bit baffled. The big black dog lay on its side, stretched out quite as long as Remus was in human form and that before the shaggy tail, which wagged in time with twitching paws and soft aspirated whines. Remus stared blearily for a minute before the shuddering ribcage, still too thin, registered with him. It wasn't a pleasant dream. With a sigh, Remus freed a hand from the sheet and dropped it into place between the silky-soft ears, and petted Padfoot soothingly. Sirius had always been ecstatic about a good cossetting, the occasional belly-rub-- James-- or a proper long scratch with a brush or willing fingernails, but something about it had always put Remus off, and he hadn't indulged no matter how many eyelashes Sirius employed when simpering in his direction. He'd spent his life loathing the beast he became by moonlight, not willingly adopting wolfish mannerisms simply because his form could change. Sirius, ever incapable of being serious, had shrugged him off and happily chased his tail as if he really did have no further thoughts in his head.

But Sirius had dropped hints enough, since winning his freedom from Azkaban. His animagus form had become a refuge, a necessity, the only relief from the constant assault of the Dementors. It came to Sirius as readily as air, and as unthinking. More than once, Remus had found Sirius curled on the floor in their Thai flat, wet nose trembling, ruff standing up. He thought Sirius might not even be aware how much time he still spent as a dog, and there was no good way to begin that conversation.

There was a faint tingle under his palm, and Remus opened eyes that had drifted sleepily closed to find himself petting a fully grown man.  Silky dark hair twined his fingers and flopped over the fine features of the face that lay on a limp pillow a mere six inches from his own.  There was a faint hint of stubble, shading in the vee of the upper lip, and little crusted crumbs of sleep at the corners of the almond-shaped eyes, and morning breath, but Remus likely shared all those characteristics, given the hour, and they just lay gazing at each other for a minute before it occurred to Remus to say anything.

He cleared the frog from his throat with a cough, and croaked, 'Morning.'

Sirius relaxed, oddly, as if the word were key to some essential mystery.  'Is,' he agreed, a sweet smile curling his mouth.

Remus extricated his hand and rolled onto his back.  His feet were cold and even a softening charm hadn't kept a spring from digging a furrow into his back all night, but none of that accounted for feeling suddenly lightheaded.  'I'd murder for a tea right now,' he said, and coughed again when his voice rasped weakly.

Sirius stretched.  He sat up, a langourous roll of his shoulders, a graceful dip of his head that bared lean muscle.  In deference to the etiquette of sharing a bed, Sirius had slept in his pants, but the drape of the sheet and the long lines of his spine gave the impression of nudity, and Remus lay frozen, staring.  It was like stumbling into a painting, like art, and yet Sirius breathed and sighed and dragged a few fingers through his thick hair, gathering the locks and letting them fall again, tumbling and swaying in ribbons.

Shit.  Remus rolled onto his front.  Quickly.

'You want the shower first?' Sirius asked.  'We can go looking for breakfast.'

'You go on.'  He fisted the pillow like a teenager.  'Don't use up all the hot water.'

'Did you always wake up so grumpy?'  The bed creaked as Sirius rose.  'Back in a tiff.'

Remus waited for the sound of spray in the en suite to let out the convulsively seized breath he'd been holding in.  Fudge in knickers, he forced himself to imagine, and it did the trick as handily as any number of fantasies had in the days of Hogwarts dormitories and shared showers.  Fool.  Fool and a half.  He'd been the rounds with inconvenient feelings a very long time ago and had no desire to revisit that agony.  The Sirius who had probably enjoyed the dubious honour of Remus' schoolboy crush was as long gone as the boy who'd blushed at the sight of a little bare skin.

He was on his feet and dressing when Sirius emerged in a cloud of steam.  'Thought you'd drowned,' Remus said, glancing up from the road map he'd liberated from the front desk the night before.  'I gave up on you.'

'I like feeling clean,' Sirius said, and dropped his towel to dig through their bag.  'Whose shirt is this?'

'Mine.'

'Should've known, it's practically a shroud.'  A wad of fabric hit Remus in the face.  'I wish you'd let me buy you something flash.'

'You bought most of what's on my back as is.'

'Fuck's sake, Moony, what's wrong with you today?'

'What?'  Remus was caught off his guard by that flare of temper.  'What, I don't--'

'You were always a judgmental prat about money.  All those little comments, like you're so clever I won't notice you sneering every time I reach for the pocketbook--'

'Sirius, I'm not--'  Remus swallowed back his second and third thoughts on the matter, and went with his gut, not his temper.  'I'm sorry,' he said.  'I'm not ungrateful, what you've done for me.'

'You are,' Sirius said, and there it was, finally, breaking the mask of Azkaban and time and emerging, tentative and unwilling, as hurt.  'I'm not trying to offend you.  I just reckon-- you'd have said, if you could pay for any of it.'

Probably.  There were a thousand arguments buried between them.  And there went his temper all unrestrained, unable to resist another row on an over-familiar subject.  'You've never not been able to pay for anything,' Remus bit out.  'You think pride is all about honour and bloodline, but there's pride in being your own man, even if you fail at it.'

'And you did,' Sirius said viciously.  'I can see it written all over you.  Moony, damn it, just--'  He seized Remus by the shoulders when he would have turned away, and ripped at the buttons of Remus' shirt collar, baring his throat.  'When,' Sirius said then, very grimly, 'are you going to tell me the truth?'

'What truth?'

Sirius touched it.  The scar.  Remus was all over scars, a werewolf with thirty years of self-inflicted damage, but the one he'd done to himself in his right mind, his human grief, that was the one Sirius touched, unerringly, the mark of a rope noose.

'I'll shower after all,' Remus replied, numb lips barely moving.  Sirius let him go when he stepped back, let him pass when he walked a wide circle around him, let him flee.  Let him lock himself in, and sink to the chilly tile with his back to the door, wondering that he wasn't even trembling.  His hands lay flat and listless in his lap, palms turned up, empty.

He heard the outer door of their suite open, and slam shut a moment later.  He thought, get up, go after him, but his body didn't obey.  He didn't go chasing after Sirius, if he was even meant to do, meant to apologise again, and again and again, never to fight.  He was wise enough to know Sirius didn't want coddling.  But he needed that more than he needed to lash out.  Needed to know Remus wouldn't abandon him, wouldn't deny him, wouldn't turn away from him again.  But his body didn't move, his mind was frozen, and he was sat there long enough waiting to thaw again to confirm it: Sirius wasn't coming back.

 

 

Dumbledore's directions had been a bit vague on the point of exactly where to locate the man with the mysterious memory, but it was a job of elementary detective work to track him down.  Remus went shop to shop with the name, though most turned him away with a shrug or a suspicious glance.  The empty state of the guest house where he and Sirius had spent the night testified to the general lack of tourism in the area, and the sight of a stranger wandering around the town on a hunt seemed to trigger more warning than welcome.  By noon, Remus was irritable enough to risk a mild persuasion of the Muggle kind: bribery.  He cycled through sob stories first, giving them James Potter's best cow eyes and Sirius' eyelashes and a tragic tale of long-lost relatives-- the war, you know-- and, when that failed, palming the contents of Sirius' Muggle wallet to lubricate reluctant memories.  He was low on cash notes and patience alike by the time he finally made his way to a dingy suburb of town, a bus ride and a long walk besides into the foothills and the low-hanging haze that might herald snow or storm or both.

The house they'd sent him to had probably never seen better days.  Brick the same colour as the muddy alley that slung low between sagging walls gave everything an air of weary misery.  The small windows were papered over or draped with curtains that shut out the weak light, and detritus littered the ground, overflowed rubbish bins, rotten and wet in puddles where it had likely wallowed for months, or even years.  He passed a pair of children playing listlessly with a ball, and they vanished the moment he'd gone by, taking their toy with them.  A dog barked, from somewhere, and Remus had the momentary thought Sirius might have followed him after all, but then the poor mangy beast appeared, a rangy starving thing that watched him warily and ventured near with a half-hearted wag of its broken tail.  Remus gave up the sandwich he'd bought for his own luncheon, and tried to ignore the dog as it followed him, doubtless desperate for more.  At the far end of that dubious lane, unnumbered and unnamed, a hunched two-storey home squatted in the the remains of a weedy garden.  Remus knocked on the door.

For a moment, just a moment, everything seemed to tighten, stretched taut.  Remus found himself holding his breath, the hair on his arms and neck rising, skin prickling.  For a moment, just a moment, he was absolutely sure he was about to be hit with a curse.  But by the time he gripped his wand beneath his coat, the feeling had vanished.  He checked his position with greater care, glowering at the suddenly threatening emptiness of the street and the houses surrounding, but his eyes fell on the dog that sat panting at his side.  It rested on its haunches, calm and untroubled.  It whined slightly when it saw it had his attention, crawling toward him a few brave inches, but if there was something brewing, it wasn't anxious.  In Remus' experience, animals were generally attuned to magical disturbances before humans.  If he could trust to that, it was safe.

He knocked again.  'Mr Siliqi,' he called out, pitched just loudly enough to be heard within and not by any nosy neighbours.  'My name is Remus Lupin.  I'm here on behalf of a friend.  Trying to find someone who was here, several years ago.  I've heard you may have had contact with my friend.  I just want to know what became of him.'

Nothing.  He glanced at the dog again.  It thumped its tail in the dirt.

'Sir?'  He knocked again, harder.  'Mr Siliqi.  My name is Remus Lupin.  I'm searching for a friend of mine, he was here many years ago.  Hello?'  He climbed onto an unsteady ledge to peer into a window, and only succeeded in nearly turning his ankle when the crumbling concrete turned to gravel beneath his boot, dumping him with a racket into a pile of empty flowerpots.  In the hopping and cursing he thought he heard a door open and shut, but when he looked about there was nothing.  'Hello?  Is anyone--'

'Kush je ti?'

The dog took up a low growl.  Remus touched his wand again, but let go in confusion.  It was a Muggle, standing at the head of the lane, and behind him was one of the children he'd passed before.  The Muggle was tallish, a beer belly overhanging muddy tracksuit bottoms, a battered windbreaker zipped to a scruffed chin.  He held a beer can, the other hand hidden in a pocket, but it didn't warrant overreaction.  The last thing Sirius needed was a charge of accessory to Muggle-baiting, if Remus got into an incident.

'Çfarë doni të bëni?'

His Albanian was non-existent.  'English?' Remus asked, easing out of the shards of broken pots and putting his back to the wall of the house.  'Do you speak any English?'

'Ung-leesh?' the man repeated, coming nearer.  He had a heavy tread, and Remus gripped his wand again.  The dog's growl increased in volume.

'I'm English,' Remus said, lowering his voice, soothingly.  'Visiting.  I'm looking for Mr Siliqi.  I was told he lives here.'

'Kush?'

'Mr Siliqi.  Does he live here?'

'A je vetem?'

Remus hesitated.  'I'll just go,' he said, but the man was still coming at him, and instinct kept him from leaving a defencive position.  On the front stoop he was at least as tall as the other man, but the Muggle had weight on him, two stone at least, and there was still the question of what was hiding in that hand in the pocket.  He eased his wand out, pressing it out of sight along the length of his flank.

'Jo zgjuar,' the man said.  'A keni ndonjë para?  Më jepni paratë tuaja.'

'No,' Remus said, responding less to the foreign words than the increasingly menacing tone they'd been spoken in.  He stepped sideways, off the stoop, and at an angle that would allow him to slide past the man and leave the way he'd come in.  The dog came skittering after him, herding tight against his leg, and Remus, surprised, wobbled in his trajectory.  He saw the man launch the beer can a moment before it impacted his skull.

It was a good throw, hurled overhand, and the shock of the hit and the splash of sour-smelling beer sent him stumbling back.  The dog was barking and it hurt, a blinding pain across his left temple and eye, but years of skulking England's streets had exposed him to violence against the indigent before, and he knew to move even through the pain.  He hurtled himself forward, not ducking away as the man probably expected him to, and threw his shoulder into the man's torso.  His momentum carried them into an untidy sprawl in the mud.  Remus scrambled to his feet and ran for it.  He didn't check his path, only dodged around corners and seeking people-- there was safety in crowds.  Mid-day there didn't seem to be anyone about, all of them probably back in town or commuting to the city for work-- he didn't slow, didn't look behind him, didn't slow til he was absolutely sure he was no longer being followed, and by then his heart was a shuddering kettledrum pounding against his ribs, every breath was searing fire, his legs too shaky even to stagger.  He fetched up against a telephone box and clung to it, shaking.

Shaking.  He felt too light-headed even for a run like that, something he hadn't had to do in the nine months of calm he'd had at Hogwarts.  It was like the bottom had dropped out of his gut, it was like he was drowning, and he gulped at air that turned to soup in his lungs, fighting the swoon threatening to overtake him.  He pressed a hand to the stabbing throb of the stitch in his side, and stared at the red on his palm, dumbfounded.  Bastard had had a knife, that was what had been hiding in the pocket.  Remus fumbled out of his coat, bundled it in trembling hands, packed it against the wound.  Apparate.  Had to Apparate, had to get back to the hotel, had to--

'A je mirë?'

His mouth was dry.  He was going into shock.  'Help,' he managed.

Postal employee.  Yellow uniform shirt, bag slung across the chest stuffed with letters.  Hand on his shoulder, ignoring his flinch, finding the blood.  'Qëndroni këtu, nuk lëvizin.  Stay, do not move, yes?  Unë do të merrni ndihmë.  I get help.  Stay.'  


Stay.  He could do that.  Had to do that, couldn't even stand.  He slid down the cold glass wall of the telephone box, jarred his spine sitting hard.  Foolish.  And Sirius, Sirius wouldn't know, had to-- had to--

' _Expecto Patronum_ ,' he managed through numb lips, and it didn't emerge fully formed, misty and only vaguely wolf-like, and it occurred to him, too late, the Muggle could probably see it too.  'Shit,' he rasped.  'Sirius.  Don't worry.  Little... little incident... ask the front desk about... hospitals, doctors, I...'

'Policinë,' the postman was saying, in words that echoed strangely, like waves inside seashells, waves bouncing off the white cliffs at Dover, Dover where he'd begun to think about giving up on finding Harry, begun to wonder if maybe he should just reconcile with Dumbledore, hat in his hand, tired, so tired of all that fruitless searching, alone, so tired.  Tired of doing it alone, always alone.

'Stay,' the postman said, and Remus had a lucid moment trying to apologise, sure this was going to end in an Oblivation for the poor Muggle, only trying to help.  He was being forcibly laid down, pressure on the bundle of fabric over his wound, but it felt like he just sank, and sank, sank into the roar of the waves, and then the dark closed over his head and he drowned.

 

 

 

For a man who'd successfully evaded capture for nearly a year in the face of nearly insurmountable odds, Sirius Orion Black made a lot of noise.  


Remus, flat on his back in a gurney and brooding hazily at the small staticky television that blared at him in Albanian, heard the row coming at him, and struggled to sit up.  A nurse appeared, as they had every time he so much as twitched, wrenching back the curtain that cut him off from the other patients on the small ward.  She pressed him back into his pillows, grasping his wrist with brisk competence as she took his vitals.  Remus set his jaw and bore it, knowing escape was on its way.

Bursting through the door, actually.  'Moony!' Sirius hollered, and was severely hushed by the tyrant who ran the central desk, a formidable old woman built like a brick house, with a face that could stop traffic.  She stopped Sirius well enough, barring his path with her hands on her considerable hips.

'I just want to see my friend,' Sirius whinged, and, despite himself, Remus began to grin.

'You know him?' the nurse asked in English.

'My friend.  He'll sign me out.'

'You should stay overnight,' she warned him again.  She'd warned him again every time he'd brought it up, and neither party had budged on the issue.  Remus nodded politely, and said, 'Thanks, but I'd prefer to leave.  I don't like hospitals.'  


She eyed his scars.  She'd done that every time, too, but at least she'd kept her thoughts on their origin to herself.  'I get your clothes,' she sighed, and left before he could thank her.

Sirius had been allowed in at last, and bounded to Remus in about three leaps.  'Moony,' he plunged on, as if Remus had somehow managed to overlook his arrival, but the touch of his fingertips to the butterfly stitch on Remus' temple was gentle.  'That's not so bad, then,' he said, much more moderate in his relief.

Reluctantly Remus lowered his sheet.  Sirius' eyes widened.  His face paled, then slowly reddened.  His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.

'Hiyas, you must be Lupin then!'  A young woman presented herself at Sirius' side.  They bore a superficial resemblance, dark hair and grey eyes, a willowy figure, though rather more rounded in the girl's case.  She wore Muggle clothes, but something about her spoke of magic.  His guess was confirmed when she peeled back her sleeve to show him a wand holstered at her wrist; she winked broadly.  'I'm Tonks,' she said, and shook his hand briskly.  'You won't remember me, but we met once, actually.  We saw Sirius off to the Express his final year.'  


'Tonks,' Remus said.  'Not-- you're not Ted and Andromeda's daughter?  Nympha--'

'Tonks,' she repeated, loudly enough to override him, and grinned sharply.  'Only my worst enemies call me Nymphadora.'

'Can we get him out of here,' Sirius interrupted.

'Right-o.  Absolutelies.  Where've they stashed your wand and things?'  Tonks twisted about, investigating the cupboard that bore the computer monitor.  She jumped when something beeped forbiddingly at her.

'The nurse is bringing it,' Remus replied.

'You let them take your wand?' Sirius demanded.

'Not so much let as woke up from surgery without it.'

'Surgery!'

'Surgery?' Tonks echoed.  Her eyes dropped to the bandage beneath his cotton gown.  He saw her note, too, everything the thread-bare gown didn't cover, and tried not to flinch.  He hoisted the sheet again.  A moment later, Sirius was swathing him in a coat.  It was a bit sweaty-smelling, and wet with snow, but Sirius kept an arm about him, so blatantly protective that Remus coloured.

'It's Muggle medicine,' he explained, and Sirius tightened his hold.  'Not ideal for wizards, so I'd like very much to get out of here and back to our hotel, but I'm afraid there was an incident.'

'You said in your message,' Sirius grumbled.  'Gift for understatement.'

'No, not that.  I think a Muggle saw me perform the Patronus.'

'Figured as much,' Tonks said.  'A wizard with a choice doesn't get himself lodged up in a Muggle hospital.  Point me at 'em.'

'Er...'

'Auror,' she added helpfully, and turned down the collar of her jumper to show him a badge pinned to the inside.  'I can evaluate and perform a field Obliviation if need be.  Don't suppose you caught the Muggle's name?'

'No, but I reckon the police will know it.  They brought me in.  There may be a report,' he added regretfully.  'I'm sorry for the bother.'

'All in a day's work.  Usually we'd leave it to the locals to clear up, but Sirius called in a favour from a certain silver-haired friend of ours who likes Orders and phoenixes, if you catch my drift.  I'll just pop over to these police folk, pay a little courtesy visit to your Muggle rescuer, and we'll clear it all up in a mo.  I'll swing round to the hospital on my way back and clean up the lingering trail once you're out.'

'You can't Obliviate every nurse, surgeon, and patient in here,' he said, aghast.

'She meant charm the paperwork,' Sirius pointed out, looking down at him with creased brows.  'You thought she was going to march round the entire building holding everyone at wand-point?'

He had.  For a moment at least.  Logic reasserted itself, but it was wizarding logic, that, and he'd been well out of the wizarding world by the time Dumbledore had summoned him up for a job interview.  Waking up in hospital had dashed a year of re-acclimation with hardly any effort.  Remus closed his eyes and fought for calm.

'They had me under anaesthesia,' he said, explained, complained, he hardly knew.  'I'm sorry.  I'll-- sorry.'

'Nasty stuff, Muggle medicine,' Tonks forgave him, giving his knee a light squeeze.  'Right, you concentrate on you, get back to safety.  I've got to be back in Ole Blighty for my shift by nine, so I won't be round to hear the whole story, mighty curious though.  Buy me a drink sometime and tell me all about it!  Chin up, love.'  Her good-bye was directed more to Sirius than Remus, and the arm about Remus' shoulders tightened again, vise-like.

'I thought she was four,' Remus mumbled, a little dazed in the wake of all the chatter.

'Not since 1977,' Sirius answered.  He released Remus abruptly, jumping off the edge of the gurney as if electrocuted.  Remus thought hazily that he might have actually been, there were so many wires and tubes about, but it was just the nurse, returning with a plastic bag of Remus' effects.  She left it sitting by his feet and handed him a clipboard, and he signed several pages without reading them, secure at least in the knowledge that, whatever they said, Tonks would be along to ensure he hadn't violated any Muggle laws.

'Don't pick the stitches,' the nurse warned him, miming plucking strings.  'You need to heal.'

'No.  Er, yes, I won't.  No, I-- won't.'

She eyed him, plainly doubting his sanity, and scowled at Sirius, who glared at her with a face like a thundercloud.  She heaved a deep breath, and said, 'You need help, you come back.'

Help.  She didn't mean medical help.  She meant-- she thought-- Remus glanced queasily at Sirius, who bared his teeth, evidently taking her meaning quite well.

'Right,' Remus said, and she left, shaking her head as she went.

'Bitch,' Sirius muttered in a little burst of vitriol, and seized Remus' bag.  He overturned it, dumping the contents onto Remus' legs, and sorted shirt and jumper and trousers and shoes til he found Remus' wand.  He stuck it into his own back pocket, fluffed his jumper out over it.  'Get dressed.  Let's get out of here.'

'I'm sorry.  I don't know why she thought--'

'That I beat you and stabbed you in some lovers' spat?'  Grim amusement formed haunting hollows on Sirius' face.  He touched the stitches on Remus' temple again, brushing the edges with his thumb.  'Get dressed.  And stop apologising for the wrong things.'

'I don't-- I don't know what that means,' he said, the weight of those eyes on his too heavy.  He dropped his gaze, reached mechanically for the oximetre on his forefinger.  The flatline was a faint irritant, an unsettling underscore to a day of everything gone wrong.  'You called in a favour with Dumbledore, for me.'

'Of course I did,' Sirius said.  'You daft fool.  Get dressed, Moony.'

There was nothing else for it.  He got dressed, and let Sirius wind an arm about him, mindful of his grip too near the wound in his gut, and walked him out of the hospital.  They apparated from the car park, and that was that.

 

 

**

 

 

The Weasley twins had found the Asking Cupboard.  Obviously, they'd asked it for aid in pranking, and it had more than supplied them with the requested assistance.

Remus stared at the toilet paper stringing the Great Hall so thickly he could hardly see through to the Head Table, and hunched his shoulders.  'This might be my fault,' he admitted shamefully.

Argus Filch was fit to be tied.  He was getting tied, actually.  Every time he pulled down a ream of paper, it generated more with a little explosion of light and air, paper popping off in all directions.  It launched itself over the large ceiling beams, wound upward along the columns, rolled under benches and smothered the tables.  Filch was halfway mummified, growling through a mask of strips wound about his head.

Flitwick began to chuckle.  'Geminio charm, if I'm not mistaken.  Advanced spell casting.'

'And a sticking charm,' Dumbledore guessed.

'No, they'd have got in real trouble for permanently defacing the Hall,' Remus said.  'It's rubber cement.'

'Blubber clementine?' McGonagall repeated, her brows arched.  She appeared to be concealing a smile behind her hand.  Snape, at her left, was most decidedly unamused.

'A Muggle adhesive.  No doubt they Asked for something that would have the functionality of the sticking charm without the lasting damage.  That's the odour.  We should probably open the windows, air it out a bit.  And the twins should be brought to Madam Pomfrey.  Inhaling gaseous vapours can produce something like intoxication.'

'Wonderful,' Severus muttered.

'I've told Arthur Weasley those boys learn all the wrong lessons about playing with Muggle toys,' McGonagall sighed.  'Yes, I know, Severus, you needn't scowl at me.  Obviously they'll have detention and points taken.  Thank goodness for Quidditch.  At least they earn back what they cost my House.'

'I'll fetch them,' Remus said, supposing he owed that much, and supposing as well that it was one less chance for Severus to put a dent in Gryffindor's race for the House Cup.  The Dungeon Bat had been in a horrendous mood all week, a stalking menace in the corridors leaping on the smallest of infractions.  Remus had been through four weeping Ravenclaws and two shell-shocked Hufflepuffs in the last day alone, and the fifth year Gryffindors had nearly mutinied at a surprise quiz covering the entire textbook and the whole year's supplemental readings beside.  That, Remus suspected, was his fault as well, but Severus was currently pretending Remus did not exist, and therefore could not possibly deign to express his feelings to Remus in actual words.

'Do,' McGonagall agreed.  'And, Professor Lupin,' she added, only mildly stressing his title, 'no more helpful hints for the next generation of marauders, I should hope.'

His cheeks heated.  'No, ma'am,' he agreed, slinking away with his tail figuratively tucked between his legs.

There was a scrupulous lack of evening activity in the Gryffindor common room.  So far as Remus remembered, Fridays had been for riotous games of Exploding Snap, lounging before the fire reading for pleasure, not work, sneaking into dark corners with a current beau for as long as the prefects were distracted.  He found Hermione Granger seated at a table with a stack of books and attempted to ignore the guilty way she looked at him; she had most certainly guessed his condition, after the assignment of the essay on recognising werewolves.  Her pity was not unexpected-- being Muggleborn, she would find the mediaeval character of the Ministry's approach to dark creatures appallingly backward and violent.  Being Muggleborn, she wouldn't know the terror of dark creatures leaving their calling card with tooth and claw and the stink of black magic.  Of the Weasley clan, there was only Ron, who slouched near Hermione and played idly with a chess set, sleepy and bored.  No twins.

And no Harry Potter, though Remus didn't realise that til he was walking the third storey east wing and caught sight of a glowing wand.It was Severus, triumphant at having found a student involved in what could only be nefarious sneaking.  Harry was alone, and wound tense as piano wire, practically vibrating as Remus neared.  He was glaring at his Potions professor for all he was worth, and Severus was shaking a parchment in Harry's face.

'Hallo,' Remus said, in the small valley of breath between Harry loudly denying some accusation and Severus winding up to deliver another.  'What's all this, then?'

'This,' Severus announced with a certain vicious relish, 'is evidence of wrongdoing.'

'Is it then?' Remus returned mildly.  'Because it looks like evidence of a misconstrued favour.'

Snape's snapped together in an almost audible glare.  'Don't,' he threatened, biting off the tee so hard his teetch clicked.

'Then I won't.'  Remus turned to Harry.  'It's near curfew,' he noted.  'You'd best be getting to bed.'

'Yes, Professor, I will, I was going to, I just wanted to... check something,' Harry said, eyes falling to the parchment Snape held.  Snape saw it, too-- Harry lacked for nothing in the department of Gryffindor notions of subtlety-- and made a show of examining the paper again.  It had only a single column of script, but Harry had a faint sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip that indicated more was going on than met the eye.

'I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets on suspicion of carrying contraband,' Severus said.

'Contra-what?' Harry muttered.

'He was carrying this,' Severus finished, thrusting the parchment under Remus' nose.

It read: _Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs would like to register their complaints to management.  Someone appears to have left grease-prints all over us._

His mind blanked.  No, worse.  It had all the feel of a panic in gathering.  His heart stopped, then sped, and he felt a bit of sweat break out himself, palms going damp.

'It's plainly an artefact of Dark Magic,' Severus informed him, dark eyes boring into his.  'Far too dangerous for a third year student, much less one as vulnerable to untoward influence as Mr Potter.'

'I'm not vulnerable,' Harry protested, and sense finally returned to Remus, kicking him into action nearly too late to stop Severus from snapping back at the boy.

'Dark Magic?' he repeated lightly.  'I should doubt it.  You'll have performed a check already, I'm sure, for the presence of a curse, and I sense nothing untoward.  Probably a lark from Zonko's.  The Weasleys are great patrons, as you're aware.  I suppose Harry was--'

'On the lookout for those blasted twin gingers?' Snape said acidly.

'Looking to return their toy,' Remus finished, though he rather suspected Snape had the right of it.  Harry obviously knew how to use the Marauders' Map, and that explained rather a lot of issues, up to and including how Harry had come to sample butterbeer without being allowed out to Hogsmeade.  And how Sirius Black was getting into Hogwarts.

God.  How Sirius Black was getting into Hogwarts.  It hit him fully, then.  He'd been so many years away he hadn't given more than a passing thought to the Map.  Sirius and James had been the true adventurers of their circle.  They'd boasted there wasn't five feet of the entire castle had gone unexplored in their seven years as students.

'I'll have it, then,' he said, and snatched it out of Snape's fingers before he could protest.  'Still haven't located Fred and George.  I'm growing a bit worried.  Would you take the lower floors?  I'm winding my way up and don't want to miss them doubling back.  Excellent.  Good night, Severus.'  He clamped a hand on Harry's shoulder and pulled.  Harry got the picture with rapid relief, and needed no especial urging to take the offered escape.  Remus could feel Severus glaring holes in their backs as they left.

Harry tried twice to speak to him, as Remus marched him back across the school toward Gryffindor Tower.  Both times, he thought better of it, but Remus let go when he felt a tremble race up Harry's spine, and the sight of the boy cringeing away from him eased his temper.  Remus checked behind them out of sheer paranoia, and cast a privacy charm for safety's sake.

'This,' he said, holding up the map between them, 'is an astoundingly stupid mistake.  I had thought better of you.'

Harry flushed, eyes flashing with hurt.  'Professor, I--'

'I don't want to hear explanations.  I happen to know this map was lost many years ago-- yes, I know it's a map-- what I don't know is how you've come to possess it, but it doesn't matter.  After what you went through last year with Riddle's diary--'

'You know about _that_?'

'Assume I know everything relevant to your safety,' Remus told him bluntly, 'and the many ways you disregard it.'

James would have burst out with a protest at that.  Or challenged him to a duel, or gone running for a more sympathetic professor.  Harry flinched.  He hung his head.

'Harry, listen to me.  Those Dementors outside haven't stopped Sirius Black getting into the castle.  Finding Neville's passwords to the Gryffindor dorms was a happy coincidence, but with this map, Sirius Black could evade even that flimsy defence.  I can't make you take this seriously, but I should have imagined you'd do it for the sake of your parents.  They died fighting to keep you alive at any cost.  Don't give your life away to Black for the price of a few butterbeers in Hogsmeade.'

'It was just...'  Another boy would have been squirming with shame.  Harry hunched in on himself, so rigid a breath could have knocked him flat, his fists at his sides white-knuckled.  'It was just a lark,' he whispered tightly.

'And if you were any other boy, it wouldn't matter so much.  But you're Harry Potter, and you live a marked life.'  He put his hand on Harry's shoulder again, though Harry swayed away from him.  Both hands, holding him still, making Harry look at him.  'You were going after him,' he realised.  'You were looking for him.'

'No!  No, I was just--'

'The truth, Harry.'

They stared each other down.  Harry swallowed hard.  'I thought about it,' Harry confessed, and his chest heaved in a harsh inhale.  'But you could.  You could find him with the map.'

The bell rang.  Curfew.  Remus let Harry go, stepping back.  'Get inside.  No pranks is to be your watch-word, Harry.'

'Sir?  Professor.'

'I will,' he breathed, damning himself and knowing he couldn't do otherwise.  'Now get inside.'

Harry's eyes lit with fierce gratitude.  'Good night, sir,' he said, and obeyed at last, scampering through the portrait and lifting a hand in farewell from the other side.

Remus smoothed a crumple on the edge of the map.  'I solemnly swear,' he said, and had to stop to ease the lump in his throat.  'I solemnly swear I am up to no good.'


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence.'
> 
> ~Jack London, Call of the Wild

He'd had vile arguments with Sirius before, but even by the standards of you-sent-Snape-to-the-Shack-he-deserved-it-fuck-you-fuck- _you_ , this ranked.

'You gave up,' Sirius growled, and took the tea cup smashing into his face with just a snarl of rage.  'Moony--'

'You don't get to fucking talk to me about giving up,' Remus shouted back, and palmed the saucer to follow the cup, but Sirius slapped a hand out and dashed it away before he could, shattering the china on the floor.

'You did, you gave up, you've been one minute from giving up ever since we met--'

'One minute!  One minute!'  Remus launched the whole tea tray next and caught Sirius in the ribs, and Sirius cursed him roundly.  'One god-damn minute and you'd have _been there_ , you'd have been there when Dumbledore came and he'd have known you were innocent, you'd have had witnesses to confront Peter, you'd have fucking taken Harry to Hogwarts yourself--'

'You think I don't know that?'

'I think you don't know that, I think you don't fucking know that because if you fucking knew that--'

'You _tried to kill yourself_ , Moony!'

'Of bloody course I did.'

Sirius hit him open-palmed across the face.  Caught the point of his chin and cracked his teeth together in a way that hurt.  'Fuck--' he spat, that was blood, he'd cut his tongue.  Then Sirius grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into the wall, rattling the mirror clear off its little nail, and then Sirius shoved his face at Remus, mashed his mouth on Remus' mouth, bit him or kissed him, maybe, and sagged into him, fingernails dragging at the scar bisecting Remus' neck.  He didn't cry, even if his shoulders shook.  Neither of them cried.

 

 

**

 

 

Peeves the Poltergeist had been seeking revenge for being hexed and humiliated Remus' first day of class.  Ordinarily, Remus counted himself considerably brighter than the average jokester and vastly superior in command of actual magic, but Peeves had quite a lot more time on his hands, and nothing to distract from his singularity of purpose.

When Remus arrived dripping egg and dragging slime, Snape favoured him with a long smirk, positively cheerful.  Dumbledore said merely, 'Oh, my.'

'Quite,' Remus said.  He trudged past the men to the row of sinks, and ran a faucet.  He wiped a smear of viscous gunk from his face, rinsing it off with difficulty.  Snape passed him a kerchief.

'The elves don't usually let Peeves in the kitchen,' Dumbledore mused.

'They don't,' Remus agreed, blotting yolk from his hair.  'He got the eggs from Hagrid's chicken pen.  Old trick.  James and Sirius used to do that, too.'

'So I recall,' Snape muttered sourly.

'Dare I ask the nature and provenance of this unusual jelly?' the Headmaster asked, bending to examine the trail Remus had left, careful to withhold the hem of his salmon robe from exposure.

'I'm afraid I don't know, and afraid to find out-- it's resistant to all the common household charms.'  That was for Snape, who had aimed a wand on the verge of casting a spell.  Snape arched a brow at Remus, and he holstered his wand with a lingering moue of satisfaction.

'Well, a little grime beforehand will do no harm; there's plenty where we're headed.'  Dumbledore cleared his throat.  'Myrtle?' he called.  'Dear child, are you with us this evening?'

It was well after midnight, not that time made much difference to ghosts.  But phantoms had society and habits of their own, and occupied themselves in the night with mysteries they did not welcome the uninitiated to.  Dumbledore had seemed assured the ghost of Myrtle Warren would be present in her accustomed haunt, however.  'Rather unpopular with the other castle ghosts,' he'd confided in Remus.  'Bit of a loner.'

Sure enough, she appeared when summoned.  A pale filmy form popped up from a toilet with a half-closed cubicle.  Her subtle glow was accompanied by the faint hum of a spirit out of sync with the magic around it, stinging along Remus' jaw like tinnitus.  He'd always been more sensitive to ghosts than other Hogwarts students, being out of sync himself.  It was a condition of the Dark magic that malformed the natural forces sustaining life.  Myrtle felt it, too.  Her shimmer intensified for a moment, a birr of voltage that raised the hair on his neck and hands til her eyes settled on him, a slow leer replacing her pout.

'Loony Lupin,' she greeted him breathlessly.  'Ohhh, I remember you.'

Well she might.  The Marauders had made use of Moaning Myrtle's abandoned toilet many times for their more elaborate plots.  She'd been rather charmed by Peter.  'Hello, Myrtle,' he replied courteously.  'I understand you had something of an adventure here last term.'

'Suuuuch an adventure.'  Myrtle floated free of her toilet, drifting to perch on a sink, swinging her flickering legs girlishly.  'That Harry Potter and his friends, sooo naughty.  Do you want me to tell you alllll about it?'

'Another time, perhaps, Ms Warren,' Dumbledore answered for them.  'I merely wished to alert you to our intent to descend via your loo to the Chamber Harry Potter discovered last year.'

'Ohhh _nasty_ Chamber,' Myrtle said, setting off at a shot for the air vent high above, flowing through the slats and peering out at them from its depths with gleaming eyes.  'I hate it, I hate it,' she hissed.  'Filthy nasty Chamber.'

'If we're quite done paving our path,' Snape interrupted coldly, 'I'd like to be in my bed sometime before dawn.  Albus?'

'Of course, dear boy.'  Dumbledore removed a pouch from his belt, gently palming an opalesque stone the size of a scone.  He held it to his lips and blew air softly across its surface, and lifted it high.  Something stirred in the stone's depths, a shadow, a fog, and the discordant hum of eldritch intensified, grating against Remus' inner ears at a high pitch.  He winced and touched a hand to the pain in his skull, eliciting a thoughtful glance from Snape, who evidently felt nothing, and a more knowing gaze from the Headmaster, at least until a hiss emanated from the stone.

It was language-- it had the cadence of language, tonality and emphasis and clear syntax, but beyond that it was impenetrable.  There was a grating glottal frictive, a sybilant trail to esses and hard 'th's.  It was unmistakably Harry Potter's voice, despite its alien character.  Remus shuddered, hooking his arms tight under the elbows.  He had never heard Parseltongue.  It had no inherent evil, but it was unquestionably Dark.

'I asked Harry to record this for me,' murmured Dumbledore.  'It seemed prudent to have a means of opening the Chamber without him present.'

'Prudence?' Snape sneered.  'How delightfully unpunctual.'

The rumble of stone beneath their feet sent them back a few prudent steps.  The sinks were trembling, porcelain ringing and pipes chiming, and then they were sliding apart, the grand facade cracking open like a hidden passageway in a penny dreadful, revealing a dark sinkhole of impenetrable depth.

'Inviting,' Dumbledore understated.  He secured his stone in its pouch, and rubbed his hands together.  'As Harry described it, we merely pop down the chute.'

Remus and Snape exchanged dubious glances.  'No traps?' Remus wondered.

'None reported.  I believe Salazaar Slytherin may have accounted the historic paucity of Parseltongue speakers enough protection of his secrets.'

 _'Incendio,'_ Remus cast, setting fire to a long-dusty torchiere hung nearby.  He snagged it down from the wall, and gave it a toss into the chute.  All three men bent over the gaping edge to watch it fall-- and fall-- and fall-- fading at last to a pinprick and then disappearing entirely, never once accompanied by the sound of landing.

'After you,' Snape said.

'Tally-ho,' Dumbledore agreed genially, and stepped over the ledge with a feather-weight charm.  'A spotty bit of breeze,' he warned them, propping a pipe between his jaws and summoning a cinder to light it as he sank into the chute.

'James would've loved this,' Remus said.  'A big dark hole, an adventure into the unknown.  A bit of the occult for good measure.'

'You're just determined to suck every possible shred of decency out of this,' Snape said sourly, and plunged in next.

By the time Remus landed after them, very far down in an oubliette ankle-deep in dust and broken bones of rats and voles, the other two had explored a bit.  'Harry described a cave-in,' Dumbledore said, motioning to a fall of crumbled stone.  'Evidently set off by Gilderoy's ill-advised attempt to cast an Obliviation on the boys.'

'Surely he'd have been arrested for that,' Remus said, appalled.  'That's beyond ill-advised, it's illegal and immoral besides.'

'I daresay the least of crimes which will now go undiscovered, poor man.'  Dumbledore hiked his robes above his ankles to climb through the hole which had been dug, or perhaps blasted, rubble to either side.  'Onward, gentlemen?'

The Chamber itself was vast, dead-feeling, damp but somehow bereft even of the amount of life in a mould spore.  Remus cast his eyes high to the jagged stalactites hung from the arched ceilings, faint winking crystal like stars losing their light.  Only the soft strike of a heel on the dusty floor drew him back to the present, and he looked past Severus to the great decaying corpse of Slytherin's basilisk.

'My god,' he breathed.

'Do you believe in God?' Severus whispered.  His eyes were coals, black and cold.

'How can you not, faced with that?'  One could very well believe in hell, at least.  That was surely the work of a devil.  He swallowed drily.  'Harry killed that?'

'With the sword of Gryffindor.'  Dumbledore, too, had gone hushed, though it was not fear or the remnant of awe that fear could instill.  Respect, more like.  He looked on the basilisk with a strange sadness, mourning, perhaps, something unknowable which had been lost.  'I expect great things of our Mr Potter,' Dumbledore added, a breath, a long time later.  'Greater things than even the heroics he has already accomplished.'

For once, even Severus Snape could not say it wasn't true.  He made a sour grimace, but didn't break the spell with a denial.

At length they began their search.  For all the value of a basilisk's scales and venom, Snape skirted wide around the body, maintaining a strict distance.  Remus climbed the ledge where Harry had fought his final battle with the beast, scrambling at ragged handholds that scraped his fingers and tripped his toes.  He stood there, the barest outcropping of rock on which a boy had stood and faced certain death.  And yet Harry hadn't died.  Remus tried to picture it, tried to put himself, a grown man, in that position, that huge snake-like creature rearing high to dash him like a toy against the pitiless stone.  Experimentally Remus extended his wand, held it like a dagger-- no, like a sword.  Harry and the Sword of Gryffindor, vanquishing Slytherin's serpent, an unarmoured boy alone.  How had Harry not despaired?  It dragged at him, Remus, a grown man facing nothing more than the thought of it.

James Potter had never killed.  He'd died an Auror who'd never been blooded, died wandless, facing a monster in the form of a man.  His son had been twelve.  Twelve years old.  That was three bodies to Harry's tally, wasn't it.  Voldemort, struck down when Harry was only a baby.  Quirinus Quirrell, at the tender age of eleven.  An ancient basilisk, and the memory of the Dark Lord, struck down with a sword, the most poisonous venom known to wizardkind, and--

'Blood,' Remus said.  He crouched gingerly, clinging to the rock behind him, to touch a dried spot of red splashed across the ledge.  There had been a little gush of it, and then it dripped a path down the ledge.  Remus slid down, slipping and stumbling, and picked up the trail again at ground level.  There.  As if Harry had staggered a bit, his path weaving.  The drips came closer together as Harry's steps had shortened-- as he'd lost his strength, as he'd begun to die, the basilisk's venom stealing his strength and slowing his heart.  There, at the edge of the pool of stagnant water, a torrent of blood.  A smear of it, with the clear impression of a fang imprinted when it was wet.  There Harry had pulled it from his arm.  And there, just a little to the right, there was a great splash of ink, where Harry had used the fang to destroy the diary.

Snape joined him, the skirt of his robe brushing Remus at the elbow.  'What are you thinking?' Severus asked softly.

'The blood,' Remus said.

'What of it?'

'Harry's blood.  The fang bore Harry's blood, not just its own venom.'

Dumbledore came from the darkness beyond the pool.  His face was very grave, as he folded his hands across the hilt of his wand.  'Yes,' he agreed.  'Harry's lifeblood.'

'The wards,' Snape guessed, his head turning up keenly.  'The blood wards.'

'So I believe.'

'There's no knowing for certain,' Remus said, thrusting to his feet.  'It could have been just the venom--'

'There's no knowing for certain, until we have another example by which to judge.'

'Another example?'

'What was the diary?' Snape asked slowly.  'This is a Dark Magic beyond a shade trapped in the pages of a book.'

'I suspect,' Dumbledore said, tilting his chin down to peer over the gold rims of his spectacles, 'we shall have more than ample opportunity to study the problem.  There may be no more important problem in all Wizarding Britain-- indeed, in all the Wizarding World-- than this.  There are no two men I trust more than you, no two minds more attuned to the mysteries we must unravel.'  He paused, lips pursed.  'And no two men,' he added with turgid significance, 'who better understand the need for utmost secrecy.  No-one must know.  Most importantly of all-- Harry Potter must never know.'

Remus stood.  'Ignorance and obedience don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, Albus.'

'What would the boy do with this knowledge?' Severus snapped.  'If we three do not know its significance then Harry bloody Potter isn't going to suss out the answers with what little brains he brings to bear on any assignment, which is to say Miss Granger's brains, as he shows paltry evidence of exercising whatever useless vestiges are rattling around in his thick skull.'

'Have you ever in your life considered filtering just one or two of those laboriously crafted rants you store up in case anyone raises a Potter in conversation?' Remus demanded.  Snape sneered at him.  'Albus, Harry's only a boy, I grant you, but he deserves the truth.'

'What truth?'  Dumbledore gestured to the blood and ink stained stone.  'Half-formed suspicions.  Unknown circumstances.  I have not even a true theory to share with him.  And he has seen for himself what threats lie in his path.  What enemy awaits him.'

'Then prepare him!'  His plea rang through the Chamber, echoes bouncing endlessly through the great cavern-- pre _pare him, pare him, air him, heir, heir..._

Dumbledore nodded to himself.  'And am I not?' he asked quietly, beneath that shimmer in the stillness.  'In my own way, and my own time, believe me, Remus.  When the Dark comes, Harry will be ready.'

 

 

 

'Are you all right, Professor?' Percy asked tentatively.

Remus came back to himself with a start.  'Yes, sorry.'  He touched his tea cup to his lips, only to find it had got cool during his inattention.  'Bit of a top-off?' he said, tapping the kettle with his wand to bring it back to the boil.  In only a moment it spat out a whistle and a steamy column of white.  He dripped water into both their cups, and Percy sat back, staring into its depths with a heavy frown bending his brows together.

'Knut for your thoughts,' Remus said.  'Unless you're only practising for Divination.'

'Oh.  No, sir.'  Percy set the cup decisively aside.  'You're not one of those people who thinks Divination is rubbish, are you?  That it shouldn't be on the curriculum at all?'

'No, I'm not one of those people.  Divination is very real.  There are prophets of great power.  Cassandra Trelawney was one of the most accurate of the modern age.'

'That's Professor Trelawney's grandmother?'

'Great-great something. Yes.'

'But Professor Trelawney hasn't... that is, her predictions are... often...'

'Wrong,' Remus supplied.  'If not a bit dramatically so.'

The shadow of a guilty smile nearly broke Percy's rigidly controlled face.  Only nearly.  'My brother Ron says she's been predicting all year that Harry Potter's haunted by the Grim.'

'Well, if anyone were, it'd be Harry Potter.'  Remus fetched another cube of sugar with the tongs and stirred it in.  'What d'you make of that?  The Grim.'

'Well, it... it seems a bit...'

'A bit?'

'A bit of nonsense.'  Ah.  There was the Gryffindor, peeking out.  Six visits, eight pots of tea, considerable patience, and the elusive hind was at last spotted through the emerald trees.  Remus didn't protest, didn't argue, just sipped his tea, and Percy ventured a little more into the sunlight.  'My older brother Bill's a curse breaker.  He says the Grim is just fluff.  Omens.  They're for people who never put themselves in the way of real magic.  He says real curses are bad enough, there's no need to worry what's on the horizon.'

'Bill sounds intelligent.'

'He had very good marks.'

'Better than yours?'  Remus set his tea aside half-drunk.  'Would you mind if I smoked?'

Percy's face blanked.  'Smoke, sir?'

'Cigarettes.  Muggle habit I picked up quite deliberately in my self-destructive youth.'  He had a packet hidden in his desk.  He preferred it hand-rolled, but the ciggies had been a confiscation off an upper sixth Muggleborn who'd come fully prepared with a lighter and all, and it was no use throwing it away.  Remus lit one and tucked another over his ear.  Percy was quite startled, hiding it badly, uncomfortable.  'Get the window, will you?' Remus asked, sitting back and propping a boot on the empty kappa tank.  Percy obeyed.  Percy was very obedient, specially for a Weasley.  'So that's what Bill thinks.  What do you think?'

'What do I... what do I think?'

'About the Grim.  About omens.'  Remus turned his head to blow out a breath of smoke.  'About Harry Potter.  Your family are close to him.'

There.  A little extra stiffness in that proud neck.  'My family are, yes, sir.'

'He's a few years behind you, don't suppose you interact much, aside from sharing a House.'

'Not as such.'

Remus sucked on the tip of the cigarette.  Cheap menthols.  Too much to ask for Marlboros.  'He saved your sister's life.  What do you think about that?'

'I think-- I think--'  Percy swallowed hard.  Looked anywhere but at his teacher.  'It was very brave, I'm sure.  He had no idea what might be down there and it was selfless, was, it, Ginny told us about the basilisk, and the Sword, even if we're not supposed to talk about it.  It was very heroic.'

'What do you think about it, Percy?'

Nine pots of tea, it took.  He emptied the rest of the pot into Percy's cup.  He lit the fag from over his ear with the tip of the one he was already smoking, and passed it over with the milk jug.  Percy handled it like a stick of dynamite, uncertainty cracking that freckled porcelain he wore as his constant mask.  Hesitatingly, cringingly, Percy put the cigarette to his lips.  He coughed pathetically into his elbow.

'Not to your taste?' Remus said.  'It's all right.  Filthy habit, really.  Maybe you won't have to rebel like I did.  You haven't got the tragedy.  That's a good thing.'  He put out a hand, and, blushing, Percy returned him the cigarette.  Remus ground it out in a saucer.  'Tell me what you think about it, Percy.  Not what you've heard others say about it.'

Percy stared at his hands.  They were clenched into fists.  'It was stupid,' he burst out, and he heaved a huge breath, as if he'd broken down a brick wall and emerged alive on the other side.  'It was stupid.  They should've got a professor.  They should've gone to the Headmaster.  When they realised Lockhart was a quack they should've gone to someone else, McGonagall or Dumbledore.  Us.  Fred and George and I, we'd've gone.  We'd've done anything for Ginny.  But they didn't even think of us.  It was stupid.'

'They were boys,' Remus said softly.  'Boys can be stupid, yes.  When they're scared, when they're sure disaster's coming.'

A fine sweat beaded at Percy's temples, on the slight growth of reddish stubble that dotted his upper lip.  'They went down there with just that fraud.  And he attacked Ron.  He tried to Obliviate my brother.  What if he'd succeeded?  Ginny would've died and Ron would have been next to dead.'

'Yes.'

'And that diary!  The boy in the diary, Tom.  She still dreams of him.  She was a little in love with him, I think, this person who wasn't a real person.  And he set a basilisk on Harry, and Harry's just a boy, Harry's just a boy even if he did get the Sword, how could he defeat a basilisk?  It had to be something Dark, there's no way he could do it on his own!'

'Harry's just a boy.  Harry's just a boy who got lucky.  It wasn't magic, or not magic he controlled.  Luck, of the worst sort.'

And there.  Tears.  'And it doesn't mean anything.  It didn't mean anything to anyone-- they all just go on with their lives.  Like it never happened.  Because it didn't happen to _them._ It wasn't their sister.  Even Harry, he just-- it's like it never happened.'

'But it did,' Remus said.  He put his fag on the saucer and leant forward to touch fingertips to Percy's knee.  'It did, and it's all right to keep feeling it.  It's normal to keep feeling it.'

'I wasn't... I wasn't even there.'  Percy smeared a fist across his face.  'I wasn't there.  I should've been there.'

'I know,' Remus said, and lowered his own eyes when they began to sting.  'The worst of it is not having been there.  I know.'  Percy's hand curled about his when Remus put a kerchief in it.  Remus held on.  'I know,' he said again, and Percy put his head down with a muffled sob.  His curls were soft when Remus stroked them, bent over his lap there.  'I know, Percy.'

 

 

 

Snape delivered the month's final dose of Wolfsbane potion in the middle of tea with Harry.  'Only he wants the DADA job,' Harry said, staring at the smoking cup with haunted eyes.  Severus stood at the door, and there was sullen hate in that sneering mouth, twisted self-loathing that couldn't express itself in anything but bark and bite, lashing out at any convenient target, anything to touch a spark in a lonely lifeless existence.

The boggart burst from the cupboard, form flickering as human eyes tried to make sense of its magical form, a spider, a ghoul, blood, broken bodies, teeth in flesh, _Crucio!_ sobs, broken and desolate, pale, pale moonlight.  Not all fears could be conquered so easily.  They had to learn, this generation, these children who knew just enough to be afraid and not enough to run away from the things that would truly hurt them.  They had to learn what waited on the other side of the darkness.

Harry was all darkness, Harry who heard his dying mother scream his name as she fell to the blinding green blaze of the Killing Curse.  Harry, who didn't run, from or towards, only stood his ground as the Dark came rushing on him.

Climbing the ledge in the dark, the dark of the midnight hour, cinching the noose about his neck, wondering if it would hurt.  Hoping it would hurt, glad it would hurt, he wanted to hurt as he stepped out into the air, let gravity take him, the rush of his fall jerked short, dancing a dying man's jig at the end of the rope.

The graves at Godric's Hollow.  The fresh-dug dirt of the men he'd killed, bodies, more bodies than he'd ever truly know, dead men who owed their bitter end to his darkest imagination, that clever gift for planning he'd always had, the orchestrator of a dozen daring kitchen raids and untraceable pranks turned to killing, poison and knives and smothered breaths in wretched alleys, life snuffed out because he had made it so.

Greyback standing over him as he ate, sickly sweet apricots, he thought they'd been apricots, honey like a film on his tongue, staining his lips.  Greyback's arms about him, Greyback's hand on his throat, Greyback's teeth, sharp teeth and dull pain, never really releasing him, never quite letting him free.

Dark eyes in bed, he'd always liked men with dark eyes, or was it grey?  Sirius and his grey eyes, but they'd never been in his bed except in fantasy, and fantasy was all he'd had for years now, fantasy to warm cold nights when he'd had nothing but a tatty cloak against the rain, a park bench his manorhouse, days, weeks passing without a word from another human being but their grunts and their disdain, walking wide of him slumped on their streets, trash to be side-stepped and avoided.  He was grey, he was grey as a ghost, maybe he was a ghost, wasn't he, invisible and forgotten by the living and who knew anymore what was memory and what was fantasy, he was a little mad these days, when the only through-line was hunger and the only surety the grey paper between his dirty fingers, black typeset boldly proclaiming SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES.

He woke alone on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack, wan dawn lighting the horizon, hungry Dementors packed in at the broken window glass watching him.

'Go away,' he rasped, and they obeyed, reluctantly, grey forms receding and taking the icy cold with them.

Pomfrey met him in the Hospital Wing with a hip-bath steaming with lavender and comfrey to combat the swelling and inflammation that always followed a transformation.  There was tea, herbal and bitter, there was soap, lye that stripped his new human skin of dirt and blood alike, a stinging scrub to wash bacteria and pus from the bites he'd inflicted on his arms and hands, a scratch that lacerated the soft skin behind his ear and shredded his scalp.

'The Wolfsbane isn't working,' Severus said, on the other side of a restless sleep in his own sagging bed in the teachers' wing, wrapping his hands in linen bandages.

'Bad batch?' Remus said.

'I won't forgive a second insult to my brewing.'  Severus met his eyes for a moment, a moment only.  'You might be developing an immunity.'

'If I'm immune, I have to leave.'

'If you're immune, it would be irresponsible to let you.'

He was all fogged from the transformation.  Half wolf, really, that was the instinct that read the twitch of a lip, the twinge of a frown quickly suppressed, while the human in him was all too weary to care.

'Put me down,' he said.  'If it comes to that.'

Delicate fingers stilled on his.  Such fine hands, so well-formed and strong.  His own were arthritic, scarred, rough.  He could long for hands like that, long lonely nights.

'Another insult,' Severus breathed.

'A last will and testament.  I'd welcome it.'

But maybe it was only another Dementor-dream.  When he woke, he was alone, and there was no reason to believe he'd ever been otherwise.

 

 

**

 

 

Sirius fussed over him all evening after the incident at the Muggle hospital, til Remus sought refuge from the incessant blanket-smoothing and pillow-plumping and tea-pushing and slept for nine hours.

He came awake quite completely and suddenly.  Nothing in particular had waked him other than arriving at the end of what his body needed to recover, it seemed, but he lay still and comfortable on their hotel bed staring at a blank wall quite contentedly for some time before it occurred to him to check on Sirius.  With a little difficulty-- his limbs were lethargic, it took a few kicks to get his legs moving, and his fingers were intriguingly numb-- Remus rolled to face the window, and lay there with his cheek resting on a soft pillow gazing at the shadows of Sirius' face, limned with the pale dawn light.

Sirius was still a beautiful man.  That admission came easily, alone with only his thoughts and the planes and shadows of that well-carved face.  Cheekbones for days, that precise vee of the upper lip, the jaw of cut glass and unusually long eyelashes, sweeping thick as fir branches along the almondine shape of his eyes.  Brilliant grey eyes, silver, nearly, clear as the sky.

Awake and gazing back at him.  Mysteries in those eyes, unreadable but inviting, as Sirius sat up, bent over him, and kissed him.

It was so easy and so natural no protest occurred to him.  It was gentle, and chaste, at least at first, just lips on his lips, sweetly pressing there.  But the hand that cupped his chin drifted lower, to his bare shoulder, lower, thumb drawing a line down his sternum, the pad of a forefinger brushing over his nipple.  But he didn't truly realise what was happening until the hand travelling his body dipped below the duvet, seeking his hip and the juncture between his legs.

'Sirius,' he gasped, bucking upright, and cracked their heads together good and proper.  'Shit.'

'Shh,' Sirius said, pressing him back into the mattress.  'Damn it, Moony, just--'  He rubbed the reddening contact bruise on his temple, and cleared his throat.  'Um, just.'

'I should...'  Remus tried to slide his legs off the bed, but Sirius caught at him.  Another kiss, this one insistent, all teeth and tongue invading, conquering.  The hand at Remus' hip found what it was looking for, and stroked-- to his immense horror, Remus was hard, diamond hard in no more time than it took Sirius to wrap four fingers about him, thumb caressing the tip of his very interested prick.  'Ged ahhhv me,' Remus commanded, begged into the tongue attempting to cram itself down his throat, and when that didn't work, he jerked a knee up hard.

'Fuck!' Sirius moaned, keeling over to curl around his groin, writhing in the sheets.  'Remus-- awww, fuck.'

Remus made an ungainly escape from the bed, falling to all fours amidst the trailing quilts and scrambling to get his feet under him.  A pull of pain at his side was the stab wound, only half-healed once his Muggle stitches had been removed and a proper spell applied, but it woke him up entirely, a plunge into frozen water that left him drenched in shame.  He made a grab for his bag of clothes and dragged it with him into the bath, upending it on the tile and searching for pants, pants he had sworn he'd been wearing when he'd fallen asleep, a shirt--

'Moony.'

He tried to slam the door, but he didn't have the reach overtop his bag and Sirius was already most of the way in, nude and unfairly glorious standing over him glaring.  Remus fell back against the toilet, clutching a bundle of fabric to his torso and sticking his arms into the holes haphazardly.  He got on a cardigan backwards and inside out.

'Moony,' Sirius said, and sighed, and dropped into a crouch to sort the confusion.  'Here,' he said quietly, extracting a pair of shorts and trousers, an actual shirt.  'You need help?'

'No, thanks, just.'

Sirius ran a hand through his hair, looked away, cheeks hollowing.  'Who hurt you?'

'I don't need to be hurt to not want sex with my straight best friend,' he said.

'No, but you do want to have sex,' Sirius retorted, angling his chin down to stare at Remus.  'I'm not so far gone I can't see it.  And this isn't turning me down, this is running and hiding the second anyone touches you like a human being.'

'Would you get out?' Remus demanded, kicking a bare foot at his bag and knocking it into Sirius' ankles.  'I want a bath.'

'Or tries to know you the slightest bit,' Sirius went on, voice rising.  'You've listened to me talk about Azkaban hours on end, you've followed me halfway round the world, you just look at me all the time, you just fucking look at me and I don't know what it means because you won't open your bleeding mouth!'

'There's nothing to know.'  The Muggle electric kettle and last night's used cups were in the sink.  Remus ran freezing water over them, over his hands, splashed his face with it, swept his tangled hair off his forehead.  Sirius rose, hovering behind him, a dark blot on the mirror like the devil on his shoulder.  He hauled up his trousers and zipped them and pretended his hands weren't shaking.

'You were no-where for twelve years,' Sirius said, dripping sarcasm.  'You did nothing for twelve years.  You spoke to no-one, you saw nothing.'

'That's right.'

'And no-one did this to you.'  Sirius put his arms about Remus from behind.  Cupped both hands, thumbs overlapping and fingers like wings sprouting from his collarbones, tenderly covering the rope scar about his neck.

Thumbs overlapping his pounding pulse.  'No,' he said.

Sirius' head fell, chin to Remus' shoulder, eyes closed against his hair.  'Happened like magic, eh.'

'Don't.'

'Or what?'

That was the problem with Sirius.  That was the perennial problem with Sirius Black, right there, and always had been.  There was never a big enough threat to stop him doing whatever the hell he wanted to do.

'You're a coward,' Sirius said, and let him go.

'Screw you.'  Remus gripped the sink hard enough to cut, swaying above it with a hollow dizzy rush in his ears.  'You have no call to say that to me.'

'No?  I spent twelve years in that hell-hole trying to claw my way out to the light, and you did what?  What did you do in all those years, Moony?  You crawled down a pit of your own and hid from the world.  You gave up.'

'I didn't give up!'

'You just laid there and waited to die and when that got too much for you too you--'

Remus turned and shoved blindly.  Sirius shoved him right back, and bared his teeth at Remus like a dog, muscles bunched, ruff raised, on the attack.

'You gave up,' Sirius said viciously.

Remus launched one of the dirty teacups at him.  This close his aim was deadly accurate.  It clipped Sirius in the cheek, leaving a mark, but Sirius shook it off with a blink and came at him again.

'You,' Sirius said, each word a growl.  'Gave.  Up.'

'You don't get to fucking talk to me about giving up,' Remus shouted back, abruptly boiling over, and he palmed the saucer to follow the cup, but Sirius slapped a hand out and dashed it away before he could, shattering the china against the shower cubicle.

'You did, you gave up, you've been one minute from giving up ever since we met--'

'One minute!  One minute!'  Remus launched the whole tea tray next and caught Sirius in the ribs, and Sirius cursed him roundly.  'One god-damn minute and you'd have _been there_ , you'd have been there when Dumbledore came and he'd have known you were innocent, you'd have had witnesses to confront Peter, you'd have fucking taken Harry to Hogwarts yourself--'

'You think I don't know that?'

'I think you don't know that, I think you don't fucking know that because if you fucking knew that--'

'You _tried to kill yourself_ , Moony!'

'Of bloody course I did.'

Sirius hit him open-palmed across the face.  Caught the point of his chin and cracked his teeth together in a way that hurt.  'Fuck--' he spat, that was blood, he'd cut his tongue.  Then Sirius grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into the wall, rattling the mirror clear off its little nail, and then Sirius shoved his face at Remus, mashed his mouth on Remus' mouth, bit him or kissed him, maybe, and sagged into him, fingernails dragging at the scar bisecting his neck.  He didn't cry, even if his shoulders shook.  Neither of them cried.

Remus swallowed.  'I'm sorry,' he said mechanically, reflexively, meaning it even, maybe.  He dragged his arms up, embracing Sirius and trying to put real feeling into it.  'Pads.  I'm sorry.'

'I don't need you to comfort me.'  Sirius pushed at him, pushed at his hair, scraping it back in two tender hands.  'I need you to let me comfort you, you daft bugger.'

Remus managed a ghost of a smile.  'With your penis?'

A laugh escaped Sirius, guiltily smothered.  'Yeah, well.  Points for effort.'  He traced invisible paths on Remus' cheeks, followed the swoop of the permanent lines etched to either side of a mouth far too used to holding back pain than it was to smiling.  'You don't have enough fight in you.  I've got too much.  I'd give it to you if I could.'

'You knew you had something to fight for.'  Smooth skin, even after the deprivation of Azkaban.  Remus smoothed his hands down Sirius' back, let them fall to a natural stop at his slim waist.  'I tried,' he whispered, his voice going thin and sandy, throat dry as a desert.  'I just... couldn't.'

'You will now.'  Sirius framed his face, stared him down with grey eyes that mourned, that sought, that reassured.  That commanded.  'I'll help you.'

'Promise me.'  He could put no voice at all behind it.  He tried again, licking his lips, sucking in air with lungs that didn't want to cooperate.  'Promise... promise me.'

Sirius nodded sombrely.  'I promise,' he answered, and sealed it with a kiss.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'But he did not know why he did these various things. He was impelled to do them, and did not reason about them at all.'
> 
> ~Jack London, The Call of the Wild

His career at Hogwarts ended with the morning post.

There hadn't been time or opportunity to coordinate with the other professors. He hadn't so much as passed along his lesson plans. Word of his resignation may or may not have been passed along, who knew, if Dumbledore had been in a hurry to arrange things, and part of Remus-- oh, part of him wanted nothing more than to sail off into the horizon with Sirius and damn a final show of pathetic dignity, the whole rumour-mongering school would invent a reason or six and he'd be nothing but a footnote, a DADA professor who survived the year with body parts and memories intact. But he didn't have a Floo hookup in his suite and the anti-Apparation wards ensured one had to parade past the Great Hall out the front doors to the gates and by the time he'd laid in his saggy bed staring at the canopy of draped velvet overhead for an hour he'd lost the momentum to escape before the breakfast bell and realised, anyway, Sirius didn't deserve a fugitive's flight, scuttling out in the dark before dawn with one eye over his shoulder fearing the angry mob.

So he dressed himself in his best robes. Brushed his hair flat and severe, gave himself a proper shave. Couldn't do anything about the bags under his eyes and the faintly haunted look he wore. Weary. God, he was tired. He smeared a wet hand over the mirror and walked out of his suite for the last time without a glance to either side. Joined the crowd of students straggling in toward breakfast, pacing one foot in front of the other and trying not to think of things like throwing himself off a moving staircase just for the sheer relief of it. He could survive another hour or two. Give Sirius a chance to bask in his freedom before he could be shot of Hogwarts and-- odd look, that, two Ravenclaws whispering to each other as he passed. A Slytherin who snickered behind a hand. It hadn't got out already, had it? He held himself stiffly and he walked the shortest path to the Head Table, the aisle between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, mounted the steps and took the chair nearest an exit, even if it would take him through the Trophy Room and the History of Magic lecture room; at least those were sure to empty at this hour, if he did a runner. He poured a cup of tea and doctored it heavily with sugar and cream. Look at no-one. Say nothing.

Don't react. Not when the owls arrived with the morning post, and the day's delivery of _The Daily Prophet_. Not when the murmurs started. Hermione Granger's bushy head of hair shot up with a cry of dismay. Several at Slytherin joined her, all of them smiling like cats with plump juicy canaries. It didn't take long to spread. Pomona Sprout gave off a little gasp, and hurried out at a quick waddle, her bulk brushing his back as he buttered a slice of toast. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed mechanically.

Snape came in with a little burst of speed that died away before he'd gone more than a step into the Hall. He looked a bit dishevelled. A bit worried, maybe. It was hard to tell at that distance, when you were making a firm attempt to focus on nothing in particular. It seemed, though, that Severus wavered. That he froze there at the door in an usual bout of indecision, neither quite in nor quite out, waiting for the lightning to strike.

'Professor?'

Hufflepuff. They could be braver in their own way than Gryffindors, really. More apt to stand up for something on principle, more apt to have principles. And he'd been all year encouraging them, building them up to lead, hadn't he, so there was no good being surprised they led the turn against him. Maybe he wasn't a notable DADA type after all. They all betrayed their students.

Remus set his cup in its saucer with a hand that trembled a bit. 'Good morning, Mr Diggory.'

A little group of them, carefully chosen representatives from the upperclassmen. Diggory was the star of the sixth years, a good prop for this little performance. There was a rising tension in the talk going around the hall, scandal like bats winging off at the first scare. The delegation of Huffies huddled close together, an honour guard behind their speaker, all of them armed openly with wands.

Diggory swallowed hard. 'Professor,' he said again, stepping up to the table with a diffident nod. But words failed, perhaps, or perhaps they weren't truly necessary. He held a copy of the paper out, extended overtop Remus' plate of toast. Remus took it, shaking it out of its fold and angling for the wan morning light from the windows behind him.

 **SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT!** occupied most of the front page. **PETER PETTIGREW ALIVE; SECRET DEATH EATER! PETTIGREW BETRAYED POTTERS, SET UP DEAREST FRIEND TO TAKE THE FALL.** Pictures, a decade out of date, a group shot of James and Lily, painfully young, freshly married and Lily newly a mother, cradling a small infant with a radiant blush, turning her porcelain cheek to Sirius, twenty and gorgeous and laughing as he pressed a kiss on her. Peter, chubby belly hanging over his belt and long nose twitching, stood shifty and nervous at the edge of the frame, trying to edge out despite the hand on his shoulder. That hand belonged to Remus, barely propping himself up and head drooping, flinching at the flash every time. The caption identified him, but the headline below the fold and nearly crowded out to the bottom right had the relevant story. **HOGWARTS PROFESSOR WEREWOLF-- DID DUMBLEDORE KNOW?**

Ah.  So that was his part to play.  Not the cleverest timing, on the _Prophet_ 's part; they'd have led with that on a day without better news, but it explained the Headmaster's absence at breakfast.  Bad enough Dumbledore having to face down Fudge over Sirius.  Dumbledore was probably up in his tower burning a load of Howlers.

Remus returned the paper to its owner.  'Did you have questions?' he asked remotely.  'Or would you like to get straight to the stones?'

'I... stones, sir?'

'Stoning is more popular on the Continent, really.  Maybe an old fashioned English burning.  Or a lynching, that's not too messy.'  Diggory paled, two spots of colour standing out in his cheeks as he swayed back, uncertain.  Remus didn't raise his voice, and despite the uneasy stirring of the other Hufflepuffs, it wasn't an accusation.  Remus flattened his hands to the table, but nerves caught him up, too, and he couldn't push to his feet on knees gone to jelly.  'I didn't hurt anyone.'

'Did Dumbledore know?'

That came as a ringing shout from the Ravenclaw tables.  Of course they'd want to know that first.  So did the Slytherins, but they were too clever to be seen asking it.  Let it come from the mouths of those with personal, not political, grudges.

Snape moved at last.  Toward his House's table.  He grabbed Malfoy by the shoulder.  Malfoy was altogether too smug not to be the culprit.  He had the sense to moderate his expression, at least, with Snape hissing in his ear.  Faux innocence didn't look any better on the boy, but the other Slytherins took their lead from him, schooling themselves to hide their glee as a year's worth of plotting came to fruition.

The truth was on the edge of his tongue.  Bite the hand that had fed him.  Fed him, housed him, groomed him.  But for Sirius' sake, he might have done it, might have relished doing it.  But for Sirius, and for Harry.  Harry had come in, just now, and stood swaying as if the sheer force of the impending showdown blew him back from the doors, his mouth caught in an 'o' of surprise, his eyes seeking reassurance.

'Would you tell,' Remus said slowly, 'if you knew this would greet you every time?'

It had gone so silent they all heard him.  Then, in a rush, the muttering started up again.  A clear uptick in hostility.

'Only we were wondering,' Diggory said, falling back another step into the protection of his Housemates.  'The Shrieking Shack... people are saying that's you.'

He could try to assure them he'd used Wolfsbane all year, and the very next question they'd ask was who supplied him.  There was no manoeuvre that did not smear blame on someone who'd fall with him, if he fought back.  It might come out anyway, that particular tidbit, but better Severus have the room to defend himself on his own terms, not Remus's.  That much was owed.

'The Shack.  Old bomb shelters.  Caves.  When there's nothing else, chains.'  He took up his tea, drank it in quick cooling swallows.  'And when they find you out, you move on.  It's a one-note song.'  This time, with effort, he made it to his feet.  'We can be civilised about this.  I'll leave.  On the hour.'

'We think that's best,' Diggory agreed, faltering just a bit, though all his companions nodded their assurance.  'We'll escort you, sir.'

'I've hurt no-one.  All year here.'

'We know.'  Diggory broke their stare to glance sidelong, cheeks heating.  'For you, sir, not... not _because_ of you.'

'For--'

Harry had been only a moment at Hermione's side, long enough to read the headline she pointed out.  Harry came charging up the aisle, now, wand drawn, skidding to a stop at the table with danger radiating out of him, echoes of James Potter in that determined stride, a man who stood by his friends, _force majeure_ or _casus fortuitus_.  The little fool had turned back time for his godfather, duelled Dementors by the dozen barely twenty-four hours ago and that righteous fury carried him not to the Hufflepuffs, but to Remus, beside his chair on the other side of the table, Harry against a school that had never really welcomed him, Harry Potter against an injustice that would only see him further alienated, mistrusted, alone.  Remus had himself a moment of real fear, then, a panic he hadn't felt even in that moment he'd seen Peter Pettigrew's name on that map, his heartbeat kicking into a pounding snare tempo of no-no-no, save him--

Impulse, but maybe it worked.  Remus drew his wand, and heard the cries of warning, but they died strangled when he turned his head away, down, bowed hunch-shouldered and small to surrender it, hilt first, to Harry.  Take it, take it please, Remus begged him silently.  Don't give them a reason to turn on you, too.

Harry reached for it.  Their fingers brushed, Harry's warm over his, lingering for a long moment.  Harry took his wand.

Remus wet dry lips.  'The elves can bring my bag.  It's probably better just to go to the gate, no detours.'

'This way, Professor,' said Diggory, gesturing for the side door Remus had been contemplating earlier, the one that would take them beyond the sight of the majority of students and provide a quiet ouster.  Harry backed away from him, probably to keep an eye on the milling crowd beyond the head table, but it looked appropriately wary and he was holding two wands, so it garnered some scattered applause, a few racous yells of encouragement.  The Hufflepuffs came after him, enclosing him in a nervy wall of students not quite tall enough or sure enough to carry off the Greek phalanx they were attempting.  But they left him in a little hollow of space, surrounded but untouched, and they moved with him, not leading but following in formation as he descended the steps and exited the Hall.  Hoots and hollers erupted behind them, a roar of approval that cut off with a slam as Diggory shut the door behind them and locked it.  And stuck a chair under the handle, that was clever for a Pureblood used to relying on magic.

'We should hurry,' Remus said.  'Give them time to work themselves into a frenzy and you might have to use those wands.'

A little electric buzz of dawning horror.  They'd considered it, that was interesting, but it was real, now.  Kyleigh Simpson, the lone fifth year in the Huffies, was looking a bit faint.  Diggory had a patch of sweat showing on his shirt, his underarms.  Harry was pale as a ghost, ahead of them.  'There's a short-cut,' Harry said.  'It goes through the kitchens and around the western ell.  We track wide around Hagrid's Hut and we can send him toward Hogsmeade, not the--'

'I can't go to Hogsmeade.'  Their footsteps echoed in the Trophy Room, a trick he'd always thought purposefully designed by arches that enhanced the accoustics of the long corridor.  It was a place meant to awe, a place meant to feel hallowed, this monument to generations of youthful accomplishments.  There were clouds gathering out the high windows.  A summer storm coming on.  'They get the paper too.'

'Hermione went to get Sirius and Dumbledore,' Harry told him.  'They'll think of something.'

'No time.'  Every head amongst them swivelled back at the sound.  Someone was trying the latch.  The lever handle rattled, and someone tried an Alohomora.  It did for the lock, but Diggory's chair scraped the marble floors and wouldn't be budged.  'Keep moving,' Remus said, picking up his pace to a jog, and the students moved with him, hustling for the far stairs.  Spiral stairs, that would offer them more protection than not, would make tight confines for a fight, but it could hinder them as much as their pursuers.  'Go in twos,' Remus said, laying hands on Leon Crispman and pushing him into the lead beside Harry, sixth year and only so-so marks in Defence, shoving Oberon le Beree to the back with Diggory, seventh year and good with hexes.  'Lay a pass-me-not on the jamb, not the lintel,' he instructed them.  'Swindon, the No Malice charm.  It won't hurt them, just slow them down.  Michaels, the--'

'Soft Stone?' Michaels suggested, already whirling to cast it at the steps even as they rushed down the winding stairwell.  'Anyone have a Weasley trick?'

'Dungbombs,' several of the students said, and Remus had an odd queasy chuckle for all the lost hours of Hogwarts' teaching staff, doomed to an endless loop of failure at eradicating minor mischiefs.  And here they were, possibly saving his life.  He'd owe the twins a thanks, if he made it out of here.  The dungbombs changed hands, pocketfuls being passed back to the final four in their troupe.  Diggory scattered a few on the ground to be trod on and set off, and saved the rest as missiles.

A crash behind them was the chair being blasted aside from the door.  'Where'd they go?' someone shouted, and more voices piled on that, a cacophony that rioted through the trophy room and crescendoed in a holler of 'There!  The stairs!'

'Don't run,' Remus said breathlessly, though they were already at the limit of speed safety could manage.  'They'll trip up.  Just keep moving.'

They reached the end of the stairs just as their pursuers reached the top.  The spells they'd left behind did their jobs, judging by the shouts and confusion, but the explosion of sour-sick smell chasing them out into the top tier of the empty classroom meant someone had got through.  Harry cleared a path with a violent swing of his wand, bowling chairs and desks aside to widen the aisle, but Nate Christian took the opposite approach, summoning everything wooden in reach to block the stairs in a bristling haystack pile.  Now they ran, streaking for the door and spilling out into the hall just as the first bell rang.  Someone seized Remus from behind and threw a cloak over his head, effectively blinding him, ineffectively disguising him.  He still towered a head above the sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, though that was solved when they push-dragged him into a crouch behind what felt like a stone statue, as the first chattering students flooded the corridors on their way to class.  Someone was sat practically on top of him, an elbow jutting into his neck and a hand squeezing tight enough to cut off circulation at his forearm, and he heard the gulping breaths of at least three bodies crammed in after him--

'This way!' a familiar voice hissed, and they yanked him out of his hiding place and dragged him with them, lurching into a wall of bodies.  The cloak was wrenched off and Flitwick hit him in the face with a spell-- an anti-tracer charm, maybe, he didn't feel any physical effect but a kind of tingle on his skin, like static and goosepimples-- Sirius was there, flinging Floo powder into the roaring fire in Flitwick's office, grabbing him by the wrist and throwing him at the fire, Remus came up hard against the hot brick and looked back over his shoulder to see his Hufflepuffs fighting to get the door closed, Harry staring after him with grim desperation, Diggory shouting locking spells, Dumbledore's deep bass thundering in the hall for order, and then the flame took him, transporting him tumbling down a long rushing tunnel to spill him out into a cold kitchen.

He sprawled on all fours and laid there, panting, sweat cooling abruptly in the chill of an empty house, ears ringing in the silence.  It was a long minute before he trusted himself to move-- wrists uncertain holding up his own weight, knees sliding in ash, tripping up on his own robes.  He made it out of the fireplace at a crawl, hauled himself upright at the edge of a large table.  Reaction was setting in, minor hurts and bruises making themselves known as the adrenaline faded-- headache, suddenly, wet, snot or maybe blood dripping from his nose-- you were meant to rest after four doses of Wolfsbane, it was still a poison, his mouth was dry and he shook all over, trembling like a leaf-- had no idea where he was.  But no-one came through the Floo after him.  It had gone dead.

 

 

**

 

 

They had themselves an awkward morning, made worse by having to pay for the broken tea cup.  Their hostess didn't seem to believe their story about Remus having a clumsy nature, but she replaced the cup and said nothing about the shouting.  Sirius left more than enough in tip to ensure she wouldn't.

They went into town for a late breakfast, neither breaking the fragile silence as they trudged to a cafe for coffee and soggy pastry.  Remus purchased a pack of cigarettes with an unintelligble name from the off-license across the street from the small muddy patio where Sirius sat hunched over a mug, deciding he might as well take advantage of their awkwardness to sneak a bad habit back into daylight.  He smoked on the lanai at the Thai flat, once in a while, but he'd always been careful to dump the ash and butts up the beachhead where the smell wouldn't give him away, and Sirius was rarely sober enough to comment.  He lit one as soon as he had the plastic packaging ripped away and returned to their table to be welcomed with a glower.

'Since when you do that?' Sirius demanded, as Remus slid back into his chair, angling his head away to avoid catching the other man's eyes and blow a stream of smoke into the sluggish breeze.

'Since Beauxbatons,' he answered, tucking the pack away in his jacket and the lighter in a pocket of his denims.  Say that for Muggle clothes, they were much handier for keeping small things distributed safely.  'It was French and hip.'

Sirius blinked at that.  A hint of something suspiciously smile-like broke through his scowl.  'You're telling me all those years of demonstrating hip and cool at Hogwarts were wasted on you?  But two minutes with the Frenchies and suddenly you're with it.'

'Must've been blinded by your brilliance up close,' he retorted.  'Hip and cool, that's what you're calling it, then?  I remember a lot of preening over your pretty hair, I wouldn't call that hip.'

Sirius flipped him the vee as he sat back, smirking, over his tea.  'I wasn't any worse than James.  I think he spent most of his allowance on hair products.  The rest of it went to getting Lily to notice his hair.'

'He was a prat.  So were you.'  Remus dangled the fag from his lip and picked at a bit of rough skin on his fingernail.  'Wonder what he'd be like now, if.'

Sirius looked away, too.  'Chief Auror, maybe.  Had the pedigree and he could be ambitious when he wanted something.  But he'd still show up at the Leaky every other Friday.  Full of tales of Harry at Hogwarts, living vicariously through all his adventues.  Proudest dad on the planet, and top volume, probably.'

That touched him.  He swallowed against the lump it put in his throat.  'Yeah.'

'That was the worst part of Azkaban.  Losing my future, that consumed me for a while, but it wasn't the worst.  Losing the past...'  Sirius shrugged jaggedly.  'Some stupid part of me's been thinking I'd get it all back, everything they took from me.  And it included Jamie.  Stupid, isn't it.'

'Not stupid.'  He exhaled smoke through his nose, tobacco harsh and tingling like something familiar and alien all at once.  'I'm sorry I'm not... not enough.  Not him.'

'That's not what I meant.'

'It's all right.'  It was his turn for a shrug, pretending indifference as the wind kicked damp into his face, his hair flying out the indifferent brushing he'd given it to flop in his eyes.  He hid behind it.  'I dealt with it.  All those stages of grieving everyone talks about.  Went through denial and bargaining and anger.  A lot of anger.  At some point I hit acceptance, and.'  His voice failed him for a moment.  He sucked studiously on the fag.  'That's a Muggle thing.  The stages of grief for terminal patients.  At the end that's what I've felt like, though.  A terminal patient.  I hit acceptance and then it was just... wait.  Wait for it to be over with, finally.  I think that's the hardest about you being back.  You're like... you're like, more.  More possibility than I've had for-- years.  I'm no good at hope.  I keep fumbling it.  I wish I were better, for you.  For Harry.'

'For Harry?'  Sirius forced a smile until it relaxed enough to be natural.  'Yeah, I fancy that.  Uncle Padfoot and Uncle Moony.  Would've been, in a sane world.  Reckon he'd like another uncle?'

'Reckon he'd like us better than the one he's got.'  A length of ash trembled and fell from his cigarette.  Remus took a quick final inhale and mashed it out beneath his shoe.  'I hate to bring it up, but; full moon in a few days.'

Sirius pulled a face.  'I don't want to do it here.  Let's go home for it.  We can come back for Dumbledore's memory later.'

'No potion to pick up.  No rush.'

The mere implication of Severus Snape was enough to put Sirius in a temper, but Sirius at least tried to bury it in a nose full of tea.  'Don't like you on that stuff anyway.  Makes you worse.'

'Nothing's perfect.'  Snape had sent him a terse note a week ago, the only notification he'd get not to expect delivery this month, he'd lost the window to brew it with the modification he had in mind.  No reason had accompanied that statement, but doubtless Severus was a busy man, at Dumbledore's right hand, and Remus had reminded himself it was too much to hope for anyway, a miracle cure.  Maybe Severus could improve the Wolfsbane sufficient to account for overexposure.  Maybe Severus wasn't God, and there was nothing for it.

'You didn't have it ever at Hogwarts and you were fine,' Sirius insisted.  'We'll ward the flat against exit, you'll be safe.'

'It's everyone else being safe from me, Pads.  It's better to go somewhere without people.'  He canted his chin at the mountains rearing up against the grey sky.  'A bit cold, but not bad, as solutions go.  If you don't want to lose a night's sleep, I'll be all right.'

'I'm going to be cross with you,' Sirius told him pointedly.

Remus bit his lip against a sheepish grin.  'Sorry.'

'Good.  Finish your tea.  I want to see this house you found.'

'You want to see this Muggle who got me what good,' Remus corrected.  'No revenge, please.  I don't want to have to explain to your cousin Tonks I let you make another mess for her to clean up.'

Sirius drained his cup and stood.  'She liked you.  You want me to let her down gently, or encourage her to chase after you?'

'Dirty play,' Remus accused, pushing back his chair.  'You're lying anyway.'

'Am not.'  Sirius tossed his hair-- yes, prettily-- and winked at him.  'You used to attract a certain type, you remember?  I think the only reason Lily ever talked to James was to get near you.'

His cheeks heated despite himself.  'If we hadn't been prefects together we'd never have talked at all.'

'Used to drive us batty, you know.  How oblivious you were to your legions of fans.  Or did the boys fall all over you, too?  You couldn't possibly have studied as much as you claimed to, I bet you were off in dark corners with some sweet young thing--'

'That is quite enough of that.'  Remus struck out into the street with his hands shoved into his pockets, head down to hide his blush.  Sirius trotted after him, laughing, and linked their arms as soon as he caught Remus up.  But he didn't tease further, and they walked in amiable quiet, this time, as Remus retraced his steps through town.

'There,' Remus said, near a half-hour later, no louder than a breath.  It looked no different than yesterday.  Muddy.  Too used, used up, what little of it had ever been habitable to begin with.  The step that had crumbled under his weight was-- repaired.  'Huh.'

'Looks empty.'  Sirius checked about him with a decent attempt at subtlety, though any Muggles watching from windows would be mighty curious about the stranger waving his hand in a complicated sigil in the air, the tip of his wand concealed along the length of his arm.  _'Hominem revelio,'_ Sirius breathed, sending the spell toward the ramshackle house.

Remus repeated it silently, one hand on the wand concealed beneath his coat.  And he didn't direct it just at that house.  The Muggle who'd attacked him had come out of some crevice-sized alley, and there were plenty more to take up where he'd left off.  A tell-tale glow, there, at the corner, another up the road and not moving, a few from doors to nearby houses.  No-one on the street to witness them.  'Where were you, all yesterday, when I was getting stabbed?'

'Sulking in that cafe.  They serve beer after noon.'  Sirius let him go to approach the house, standing on his tip-toes to peer in the papered windows.  'No-one in there.  I don't think anyone's been there a long time.  Dumbledore was sure about this place?'

'Dumbledore was sure about the name.  That's all.'

'Nothing for it, then.'  Sirius troubled even less to hide his magic as he climbed to the door, tapping it with his wand.  _'Alohomora._ '

'Padfoot--'

'What, they'll arrest me again?'  Sirius shouldered the door open, shoving when it resisted, but it was just the wood warping in the frame.  It scraped and shuddered, but obeyed.  'Come on.  A quick sweep for clues.'

Grumbling to himself about persons who thought they could act like Aurors ten years past their training, Remus climbed the steps and eased through the crooked door.  The inside was nearly as chilled as the outdoors, and quite as drafty.  The source of that, Remus saw, was numerous cracks in the ceiling, a badly joined window frame, and a floor that had caved in to the stilted foundation in several spots.  It was filthy, but also clearly long abandoned.  There was a thick layer of dust on the rubbish spilled over the remaining floors, and the frameless mattress that occupied one corner writhed with rats nesting.

'So how do we do this?' Remus wondered, pocketing his hands against the chill and crossing the halves of his jacket across his chest.  ' _Accio_ clues?'

'Start reading,' Sirius said, and kicked a pile of damp moulding newspapers at him.  'I thought you were a halfway competent spy, back in the day.  You remember what to look for.'

'I don't think we've got the same notions what spies do.'  He turned a slow pivot, examining the house.  Four walls, divided with a bookcase to form a little nook by the galley kitchen.  A landline telephone cradle, the receiver dangling from a twisted cable.  Bare walls, at that, no hanging pictures or the like.  Peeling wallpaper and paint of indeterminate colour beneath it.  'Nothing's missing,' he said, noting two chairs of rotted wood at a tilting table, an old television set with an overturned aerial and many, many cans of Albanian beer littering the floor around an overfilled rubbish bin.  'That's odd, in't it.'

Sirius looked up from reading the titles of the books on the shelves.  'No robberies.  No visitors.  You'd think an area like this would have a few squatters at least.'  He hesitated, then said, 'I know you write to Harry.'

Remus stiffened, some instinct twinging to that even as his brain tripped along to wonder why he took it as an accusation.  'Don't much know if he wants me to.  He hasn't answered.'

'I, um.'  Sirius rocked a book along its spine, dropped it back into place.  'Maybe you could help me.  I can't quite get started.'

He faced Sirius.  Looked at him, really looked.  Not so gaunt anymore, if not back to the slight hint of muscle and heft that men liked these days, but the drainpipe trousers and long swing of his coat recalled the boy who'd swaggered through Hogwarts sporting a greased-up Teddy Boy quiff.  Fastidious, sharp, seductive-- he'd have fallen for Sirius Black even if they'd never met, had dreamed of boys like that when he'd been a lad in Manchester, afraid to approach the teenagers who hung about the slums smoking cigarettes viciously, talking boldly of fashion, records, arguing hepcats versus rockabillies until the punks drowned it all out on the edge of a switchblade.  But Sirius Black, eighteen and gloriously self-absorbed would never have asked that question.  Would never have admitted a weakness like that.

'You really care about him,' he said, wondering at the tone of his own voice, low and seeking.  'Harry.'

'Course I do.  You thought I was lying?'

Not lying, exactly.  Not wholly right in his own head, yes.  'I thought you'd give up on it, maybe.  Move on.'

'Fuck you,' Sirius said.

He bit his lips together.  'I'm sorry,' he said, and maybe Sirius heard the truth in it, because he turned his head stiffly away and nodded, just that.

'Here now, that's more like it,' Sirius said then, waving him in.  'Anything strike you odd about that?'

Remus glanced over the bed.  The pile at the end had probably been sheets at one time.  The mattress was infested with probably a dozen species of creepy crawlies.  There was a little digital clock on the ground next to it, green letters blinking 00:00.

'It's working,' Sirius pointed out.  'Ekeltricity doesn't work if it's not cabled in, right?'

'Electricity, and it could be batteries.'  Although that'd be odd too.  Batteries didn't last forever, and this place had been neglected more than long enough for these to go flat.  Remus looked about him for a likely instrument, and scraped a handful of coins off the edge of a box.  He tossed them at the clock.

Everyone coin that touched it vanished.

'Stationary portkey?' Sirius said, eyebrows raised.

'Don't touch it.'

'I wasn't going to!'

'Yes you were.  I know that look.'

Sirius stuck out his tongue.  'Fine, you tell me how we're to figure out where it goes without touching it then.'

'We're not.  It could go to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.'

'Adriatic's closer.'  Sirius knelt a respectful distance from the portkey, examining with his eyes alone, though his fingers tapped impatiently on his thigh.  'Cousin Tonksie could bring us a Black Box.'

'Transport it?  Why?  It might not even be a clue.  All it tells us is a wizard was here, at some point.'

'A wizard was here, and wanted to be able to get somewhere else, and back again.  Stationary portkeys have reverse-keys.'

That, Remus reluctantly admitted, was true.  'I still don't fancy a ride into unknown territory.  And the Unspeakables may be able to learn where it's keyed without using it, but they'll be months examining it and I doubt Dumbledore's all that eager to explain to the Ministry why he wants it.'

'We trip the portkey, and first thing we do on the other side is _Accio_ the reverse-key.  Assuming it still works, we'd be able to get right back here immediately, if not sooner.'

'There's some large gaps in that plan, Monsieur Padfoot.  We don't even know how important this memory is.  A little pause for further investigation isn't a big ask.'

'Boring, though,' Sirius replied, as if that were a perfectly reasonable thing to think.  'And I'm not an Auror anymore, but I am a fully trained Marauder, Monsieur Moony.  What d'ya say to a little adventure?'

'I say you're mad,' he muttered, but already knew he'd be giving in.  He always did, after all.

 

 

**

 

 

He staggered through the lower level of what appeared to be a townhouse, overgrown but unremarkable garden the only thing visible from the one window in the cellar kitchen.  He dragged himself up a few steps to a foyer, steered wide of the front door, clever enough not to tempt that, who knew what was out there-- or who, if that anti-tracer didn't stop Aurors or reporters come to grab the newest story at Hogwarts.  One of the other doors off the foyer yielded a library, and he peered through dusty, doxy-eaten curtains at the street below, identifying nothing but a street with other townhouses, a row of fenced-in trees fronting a queue of Muggle cars.  He let the curtain fall and slumped onto the couch below the window.

'Filthy half-breed, making itself at home in Mistress's house.'

He raised his head from the scratchy cushion.  A house elf had slouched in after him, a rag clutched in one hand brushing over the footprints Remus had left in the dust, smearing it back.

'Whose house?' he managed.

'The filthy creature doesn't even know what house it's in,' the house elf grumbled, refusing to look at him, long ears twitching violently.  'Doesn't even know it's in Mistress Black's house, doesn't even know.  Sent here by nasty Master Black, isn't he, must be, bringing his filth in after all this time...'

Master Black?  Sirius.  He'd said something about hiding out at the old abandoned houses, hadn't he.  Remus couldn't remember the name of the place.  Middle of London, wasn't it?  Or the one in Kent?  Hadn't they a house in France as well?  No way of knowing.  But-- 'Can anyone else get in?' he asked.

The house elf shot him an evil look sidelong, grumbling to himself as he loitered there.  'Wants to know Mistress's secrets, it does.  Wants to know our ancient wards and protections, won't tell him, no we won't, Mistress, won't tell him how to pass the wards, no-one Dark or Light can pass the wards--'

That was good enough for Remus.  'What's your name?'

'It wants to know my name.'  The elf glared at him from drooping brows, saggy sallow skin swinging as it rocked back and forth.  Could elves go mad?  This one was cracked for sure.

'No names, then,' Remus mumbled.  'Where are we?'

That worked better.  The elf stopped its ritualised swaying and drew itself up in pride.  'Grimmauld Place, summer home of Orion and Walburga Black, last in the line of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, Master and Mistress of--'

'Is there water?  Running water.'

'It wants a bowl, mongrel cur, a bowl of water to lap up like a dog.'

'I can see why Sirius hated this place so much.'  Remus gathered his strength, and pushed himself back to his feet.  'Could you at least start a fire, please?'  He didn't remember in the rush who'd ended out with his wand, but it hadn't been in his hands when he'd gone through the Floo.

The elf flapped its saggy jaws a moment.  'It says please.  Who says please to house elves?  Not a proper wizard.'

'That's a no, then.'  He'd have murdered for a cup of tea.  He limped back to the kitchen, bouncing back in shock when a portrait erupted in screeches, but at least there was no-one to hear her depraved ranting.  He left the elf trying to soothe the portrait and returned to the kitchen.  There was running water, and he drank it out of his cupped hands, splashed his face, stood staring down at the rust ring in the sink's deep belly.

The whoosh of the fireplace woke him what felt a long time later.  He'd fallen asleep at the table, head cushioned on his folded arms, but the sound of the Floo sent him rearing back, scarpering for the shelter of the door with only a pilfered knife to defend himself.  He ducked into the pantry, cleaver clutched in one hand as he angled himself low, peering into the darkness with his pulse pounding in his ears, breath held as long as he could for silence.

Footsteps.  Pausing in the kitchen, then a hiss.  'Kreacher?  Damned mad elf, where've you got to?'  Boot heels clicking on the floor, through the passageway to the foyer.  'Remus?  Remus, where-- shit,' Sirius exclaimed, jumping back as Remus stood out of his hiding spot.

'You're alone?' Remus asked, knife wavering.

'Just me.'  Sirius recovered himself first.  He grabbed Remus by the shoulders, yanking him into an embrace.  'I was terrified for you.  The Granger girl came bursting in on Dumbledore, said you were in danger-- Harry told us about the students chasing you out, they've been all day identifying who was after you, you've never seen so many points taken at once, hateful pissants--'

'No-one was hurt?'

'I don't know why you'd care.'  Sirius squeezed him hard, released him reluctantly.  Took the knife delicately.  'You've been run out before.'

He nodded tightly.  'It happens.  It's fine.'

Sirius hooked him into a hug again.  'For someone who lies as much as you do, you're shit at it.'

'I'm-- I'm not--'

'Come sit down before you fall down.'  Sirius backed them out of the pantry.  'Kreacher, you vile thing, where are you?  Light a fire.  And find Father's wine, if you haven't drunk it all.  I thought the Aurors would get into the other houses, but my father warded every inch of Grimmauld Place,' he told Remus, leading him by the hand back to the kitchen.  'No-one will be in or out of here without my permission.  Not that I intend to stay here now.  We'll leave as soon as you're ready, we'll go-- well, I don't know where yet, but away, won't we, you said you'd come, you will, won't you?  You will, won't you?'

The second repetition came out in a smaller voice, Sirius staring at him through long lashes, shoulders hunched.  'I-- yes,' Remus said, for there was nothing else to be said.  Even if he hadn't meant it when he said it, he certainly had no-where to go now.

A warm hand cupped his cheek.  'It'll be all right, Moony.'  Sirius' thumb brushed beneath his eyes.  Brushed through wet, tears he hadn't even been aware of til Sirius stroked them away.  'I'll help you,' Sirius said, marvelling at it like a child divining his first secret.  'I'll help you.'

He managed a smile.  'My hero.'


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'When he was made, the mould was broke,' said Pete.
> 
> ~Call of the Wild, by Jack London

Feeling like a twat and knowing he was going to regret it-- come to think of it, that had been pretty much his default state as a Marauder-- Remus put out a hand to the portkey. Sirius winked at him, and held him firmly by the waist.

'Now,' Sirius said, and Remus touched a finger to the portkey.

The disorientating whirl and tumble of portkey travel seemed to go on an awfully long time. Remus felt himself stretched like soft taffy and snapped back together again with Sirius howling in his ear like a loon, enjoying himself immensely, but though Remus usually took portkeys with equanimity he was dizzy and nauseated by the time they were spat out the other side of the spell. He staggered to his knees with Sirius clinging awkwardly along, and gagged out an upswell of acidic bile.

'Yech, Moony,' Sirius complained, scraping his shoe in the grass where it was splashed.

'Not sorry,' Remus gasped, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He still felt unsettled, and closed his eyes on a world that didn't seem to have a horizon line or gravity and forced himself to breathe deeply. 'Where... where are we?'

'Dunno. Mountains, I think. Lots of woods. You see that-- Moony, c'mon, eyes up.'

He tried. He couldn't. 'I don't feel right.'

'I feel fine. Good, even.' He heard Sirius stomping about in a racket, kicking leaves and breaking twigs in all directions at once. Remus gagged again, but the lone cup of tea he'd managed at breakfast left his stomach nothing to do but seize and cringe like a rag wrung dry. Something was wrong. Even an adverse reaction to a portkey should have abated after his magical core fully resettled. This was more than a transport gone sideways, but the thought scattered before he could grasp the tattered edges, his focus destroyed.

'There's wards,' Sirius said, somewhere to his left-- his right-- ahead or behind, he couldn't tell at all. Everywhere at once. 'Strong wards. You can see the fields overlapping if you squint.'

'Wards, er...'

'Merlin's wrinkled nub. _Finite._ ' Nothing happened, other than Remus lurching to the left and smooshing his nose in what he hoped was only damp leaves, not the slurry of his recently emptied stomach. A moment later he felt a wand at his temple, smelled Sirius crouching near him. A firmer _Finite_ , followed by a confused _Finite_ , followed by an irritated _Finite_ , and, when that produced nothing, Sirius grunted and stuck his hands into Remus's armpits and hauled him upright by sheer force. Remus promptly slid right down his chest, mewling into Sirius's belt buckle.

'Don't,' he groaned.

'What?'

'Don't you dare make a dick joke.'

'Well I wasn't planning on it, but now you bring it up I've got several I'd like to share. Starting with "bringing it up".'

'Sirius!'

'What wards would affect you and not me? Is this a werewolf thing? If it's a werewolf thing, how'd whoever set the wards know a werewolf would use that portkey and come here?'

Excellent questions. Remus thought. It was hard to think in straight lines. Sirius petting his hair didn't help.

'Or maybe it's not specifically a werewolf thing,' Sirius went on thoughtfully. 'It could be set to disorientate any magical creature. That still doesn't answer for why. Why target a magical creature instead of normal wizards-- er, sorry, that came out wrong-- I mean, wizards can break wards. Eventually. With proper training and all.'

'Eurgh,' said Remus, because one of Sirius's shirt buttons was digging into his eyeball, and strangely enough the pain provided a modicum of stability.

Sirius patted him on the head. 'I've been reading some of those textbooks you had from your DADA class. Well, browsing. Well, I knocked one off the shelf the other day and I flipped through it before I put it on the table.'

'Why didn't you just put it back--'

'Did you know magical creatures can pass through wards? You probably did, you taught the class, and you actually did the work back when we were in school. Wards only keep out humankind. So whoever set up these wards wanted to keep a wizard, or a Muggle I guess, from leaving the area, and alternatively, or in addition, wanted to keep any magical creatures-- is that an offencive term? Keep magical creatures who happen to wander across a portkey from making it anywhere beyond the warded zone. Which begs the question: how far do the wards extend? This calls for an experiment.'

'Getting here was already an experiment. Experiment failed. Let's go please.' He clawed his way across what he hoped was Sirius's knees, and lurched onto all fours with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. 'The portkey was over here?'

'Completely wrong. Keep crawling. Keep crawling. Keep--'

'Fuck!' Remus squealed, jerking back from the electric shock. 'That hurt!'

'Really? Maybe I was wrong about the wards.'

'Ow. Oh-- ohhh, oh God, ohhh--'

'Moony?' Sirius came hustling for him, reaching with urgent hands. 'Remus, where are you hurt--'

Remus shoved. Sirius bowled over, and bounced back off the wards with a screech.

'You weren't wrong,' Remus said.

 

 

**

 

 

He had never visited Sirius. One didn't, in general, visit those kept at Azkaban. It was permitted only in rare cases, family members or spouses, but rumour had it bribes could pave the way for others. Remus had no money to speak of and no favours to grant, but Dumbledore would have arranged it for him, if he'd ever asked. He'd known that, and chosen not to make that request.

He made it now.

It pinched, and Remus didn't pretend it didn't, to so much as be in the same room as Albus Dumbledore, after the way Remus had been chased out of Hogwarts. In fact he couldn't bring himself to return to the school, even for this, and so contrived to run into Dumbledore at the Ministry, nearest he could manage to neutral ground. An invented errand took him through Arthur Weasley's office, and from there Remus loitered where he expected the Headmaster and Chief Warlock to pass.

The faint glimmer of cautious pleasure on Dumbledore's lined face pinched, too. 'Mr Lupin,' Dumbledore greeted him, rather formally, but extended a hand hopefully nonetheless. Remus buried his cringe, and forced himself to take it. Dumbledore squeezed his fingers gently.

'How is Sirius?' Dumbledore asked then.

'Well. Getting rather tan. I can't drag him in from the sun most days.'

'How wonderful.' Dumbledore's smile was all sincerity, and maybe that was sincerely meant, those sprightly blue eyes picking out the pattern of freckles that had graced Remus's cheeks since their move to Thailand's beaches. 'Please pass on my greetings. I assume, that is, that he is not here with you?'

'No. He... doesn't know I've come.'

'That sounds-- I was going to say "serious", but I strive to avoid too many puns before tea,' Dumbledore confided. 'Let me say, rather, that it sounds important, and deserving of my full attention. Will you walk with me?'

'I'm not interrupting?'

'There comes a point in a man's career when scheduling loses all form and meaning, and one delights in confounding the arrangement of one's diary. If you don't mind, however, we shall walk in the direction of the courts, where I shall find my next appointment.' Dumbledore gestured courteously, and Remus fell into step with him as Dumbledore resumed his path through the Atrium. Witches and wizards stepped wide of them, bobbing their heads and doffing hats in polite greeting as they passed.

'I used to come here as a boy,' Remus said. 'When my father sat the Wizengamot. I remember being so excited by all the people and the noise.'

'My first visit to the Ministry was at an older age, my seventh year at Hogwarts. I had received a presitious internship. I was quite overawed myself.' Dumbledore smiled at him. 'How is your father?'

'I don't know,' Remus answered bluntly. 'We haven't spoken since the war.'

Dumbledore smoothed a hand over his long beard, his smile fading. 'To lose contact with one's family is a difficult thing. I am all too familiar with that pain.'

'There are worse things in the world. Or newer pains, maybe.' Remus drew a deep breath. 'I want to see Peter.'

Dumbledore did not glance sharply, or eye him sidelong, or sigh in heavy disapproval. He merely chose a queue for one of the lifts, accepted the hasty bows of the two wizards ahead of them who removed themselves from the line, and boarded as soon as the doors opened for them. Remus followed him on, and took a handhold as Dumbledore turned the crank to the lower levels.

'You must know it will be difficult to execute this,' Dumbledore said at last, as the lift lurched into motion with a stomach-wrenching drop. 'Bureaucratically speaking.'

'I'm hoping rather less difficult if I start at the top.'

'What do you hope to gain from such an encounter?'

'A little information,' Remus replied, shifting his feet as the rattle of the lift threw him off-balance. 'A little wisdom, maybe.'

'This is a journey of the soul, then. To learn where you went wrong.'

'I spent years agonising over what turned Sirius into a traitor. But I never just asked. I suppose I wouldn't have believed him. I'm not sure I'll believe Peter's story. But I should ask, all the same.'

They hit bottom, and the lift jerked rightward, buzzing at speed. They rocked in tandem, each finding their feet again. Dumbledore seemed thoughtful, his free hand stroking at his beard again.

'Did you ever ask?'

'No,' Dumbledore murmured. 'I, like you, would not have believed Sirius, to my shame.'

'Not him. I meant... I meant did you ever ask Grindelwald. Ever ask him why.'

'Ah.' The momentary silence had a strained quality. He'd struck a nerve at last. 'No,' Dumbledore said, nearly a full minute later. 'No. I did not trust myself to ask and feel nothing. Nor even to be in his presence and feel only righteous anger for the destruction he had wrought, or sorrow for the same. He was a friend. I did not trust myself to ever see beyond that, even in a cell in Nurmengard.'

'I don't think you trust much,' Remus said. It escaped him before he could think on it, but even after it was off his lips he found himself relieved, not regretful. It was the truth, or a bit of it, only a little dressed up to hide the ugliness that ran deeper than the surface. 'I don't think you've ever trusted me.'

'I have,' Dumbledore said, and looked directly at him, though Remus was no Legilimancer and wouldn't have trusted, himself, what he would find if he went looking. But perhaps it was Dumbledore who sought a little truth beneath the surface, and found an honesty he didn't like in Remus's gaze. He didn't hold it for long.

'But not, perhaps, as I should have,' Dumbledore acceeded quietly.

'If you're not promising anything, then there's not much point apologising,' Remus muttered, gripping his handhold with a sweaty palm and turning his face away.

'If you wish to see Peter, I will not stand in your way. That is all the apology I can offer that you will accept.'

'Did you read that from me, or did you say it because it's all you would accept in my place? It doesn't matter.' Their lift came to a grinding halt that threw Remus bodily into the wall. Dumbledore managed to stop himself before he shifted too far into Remus's side of the lift. 'If that's all the apology you can give, I'll take it.'

The doors cranked open, and Dumbledore exited first, the privilege of rank and age, and because Remus had rather look at his back than his face. Remus did not plan to follow at all, however. He had what he'd come for.

'Does Sirius know of your desire to speak to Peter?' Dumbledore asked briefly, sweeping the long hem of his robe clear of the lift.

'No,' Remus admitted. 'I'll tell him when it's done with.'

'If you cannot forgive me, Remus, I beg you will learn from my example. Trust, once broken, can never be rebuilt. Do not strive to become what you hate in me.'

'I don't hate you.' With an effort, Remus forced his mouth to curl. He hadn't had much occasion to smile in many years, but he was learning, for Sirius' sake. 'Believe it or not. I understand you, and I wish I didn't. I think it would be too easy to be you, if I had your power and influence. So I suppose I'm grateful.'

Dumbledore's lips parted, then closed. He exhaled a soft chuckle. 'An experience, Remus, as always. I hope you find what you're looking for.'

'Good day, Headmaster.'

 

 

 

Sirius had told him about Azkaban, mostly when drunk. Very drunk. If he knew Remus had memories of his own, he didn't recall it, or it didn't matter, not truly. What Remus knew could not compare to months, years, of imprisonment there. To the knowledge of a life sentence, to the inescapable reality of hope extinguished.

But nothing matched setting foot on the island itself. No story nor memory was lurid enough to capture the howling winds, the furious roar of a sea determined to grind out that island grain by grain, the eternal storm that raged against the evil always threatening to spill out of the corroded iron walls. Nature rejected this place, and only magic could have kept this place from falling to nature's wrath. It reeked of wrongness.

Remus huddled in his cloak as the lone human warders escorted him up a winding stairwell. No lifts here. It was a long climb, and every prisoner walked up it. Fewer walked down. There was precious little real estate on the island, but a hierarchy had fallen into place over the centuries. The high-value prisoners had the largest cells in the penthouse, a silly bit of preferential treatment that could hardly register with the insane who populated those rooms. Those with briefer sentences were confined in the lower storeys, and everyone left between got little attention at all. Except from the Dementors, who were equal opportunity diners.

Peter Pettigrew had a mid-level suite comprised of a cot, a hole to piss in, and a barred window providing a view that would never change. There was no day nor night shining on Azkaban, only the endless storm. Everything glistened with wet in the pale magelight that wavered at the tip of the wardens' wands. Everything smelled of rot-- the stench of unwashed human bodies, the must of uneaten food gone to mould, the tang of rust on every surface. It was the smell of despair, designed to blunt the senses, to numb the mind, to make it easier to slip away in the dark. The Dementors lurked in every shadow, always hungry.

'One hour,' said the warden, and retreated to the end of the cell block. At that range, his patronus, a waddling wigeon, offered scant protection, but this time Remus was not bound behind bars without a wand. He could protect himself, and he did so. With a murmured incantation, Remus cast a patronus of his own, a long-snouted, full-chested wolf that licked its chops and paced restlessly up and down the corridor. The Dementors drew back, hissing, and Remus gave himself a shake, a deep breath, and a desperately needed moment of calm to gather his thoughts.

'Hullo, Peter,' he said.

The huddled lump on the cot stirred. The balding head emerged first, tatty whisps of what had once been blonde curls lifting from the limp pillow. Eyes of watery blue searched, as if Peter couldn't quite see him, but Remus realised it was the Dementors Peter searched for, and found gone. A bit of life sparked in his sagging cheeks, a flush of colour.

'Remus?' Peter wavered. 'Is that you?'

'Yes.' He voice failed him. 'Yes,' he tried again. 'Peter. I've brought you some things. Fresh clothes. Some butterbeer. Chocolate. You should try the chocolate first. It will help the most.'

Peter left the cot on legs that trembled, barely holding him up. He had to crawl some of it, the few steps to the bars, shaking hands grasping through them not for the chocolate, but for the hands that offered it. Peter clung to him, and began to weep, soundlessly, clutching Remus's hands to his face and sobbing into them. Remus let the chocolate tumble to the floor.

'Remus,' Peter choked out. 'Remus, my friend. You are my friend.'

'I was.' Gingerly he tugged, but Peter only clung harder to him, refusing to give him up. 'But that was a long time ago, Peter.'

'Don't condemn me, not you. I couldn't bear it if you turned on me.'

That was a risible claim. Sirius had ranted whole nights away on the subject of Peter Pettigrew's inidious attempts-- successes at turning the Marauders on each other. Remus had assumed he'd been spared enduring Peter's lies by virtue of being their first subject. But something caught at the edge of a thought, maybe, and hesitation stopped him dismissing that in anger.

'Do you know what haunts me,' he said. Peter shuddered, smearing his eyes on a sleeve. Peter had struggled with his weight his entire life, but twelve years as a pampered pet were fading fast in the face of Azkaban's deprivation. His fat hung on him in folds already, and would be gone before the year was out. There were no appetites that could survive Azkaban. 'It haunts me that James and Lily went to their deaths thinking I betrayed them. Don't ask me to forgive that. You're the one who did that, Peter.'

Peter seemed to collapse into himself. His head bent to the cold iron floor, hands fisting in his hair, beating rhythmically on the back of his skull. 'No,' he moaned. 'Nooo, no. I never wanted to.'

'You turned Sirius on me first? Or James first? Or Lily, maybe. Maybe she was the easiest to pick off.' She'd never had strong bonds with the rest of them as she had James, though she'd accepted James came as a packaged deal. That, and Lily could be hard when she wanted. She'd never forgiven Severus Snape for turning on her. If she'd written off Remus, he wouldn't have won her back with anything less than full vindication in the eyes of the law, a character reference from Albus Dumbledore, and a scene like the one Remus had endured in the Shrieking Shack-- irrefutable proof of innocence.

But that was the point, wasn't it. They'd all gone hard, during the war. It wasn't just Remus who'd learnt things to loathe about himself in those days. Maybe, if she'd lived, Lily would have relented on Snape and learnt to forgive. And Remus didn't want to leave it so long to learn that lesson that he died before he could.

He retrieved the chocolate from the floor, and peeled back the paper enough to break off a tab from the brick. 'Here, Peter. Eat some. It will help.'

Peter wiped at his face again. 'You're being kind.'

'Not really.' He passed the chocolate through the bars. Peter took it in grubby fingers and bit into it, eyes fluttering closed and taut shoulders relaxing bit by bit. By the time Remus had passed another square, Peter looked a bit more human, and by the third managed something resembling a smile. That vanished when Remus said, 'I want to hear you acknowledge the life debt you owe.'

'Remus...'

'No. No other words til I hear those. Say "I owe a life debt to Harry Potter".'

Peter whimpered, scrabbling at the bars between them. 'Don't make me, Remus, please--'

'Do you doubt we would have killed you if Harry hadn't intervened? Do you think neither Sirius nor I ever swore a vow of vengeance? The balance has to be paid. Acknowledge the life debt.'

'Remus, no, I can't, I can't!'

Peter scuttled back, but Remus was quicker, lunging through the bars to grab Peter by the wrist. Peter whined and cried, but his feeble flailing did nothing to prevent Remus from wrenching his sleeve up to the elbow, baring his pasty forearm to the blue-hued light of the wolf patronus, which slunk near with bared fangs, fur bristling in a soundless growl.

'You don't bear the Dark Mark,' Remus observed. 'I wondered. Or is it somewhere else? Hidden? If you're his, he would have Marked you somehow.'

Peter stared at him with reddened eyes. Not mad yet. He would be, someday. Remus hoped it took a very long time.

With trembling hands Peter peeled down his lower lip. There in the vulnerable pink flesh, burnt deep as a brand. The Dark Mark in miniature.

Remus slid his hand around to Peter's shoulder, to his neck, into greasy strands of hair. 'Acknowledge the life debt.'

'He'll destroy me, Remus,' Peter whispered.

'Then you had better help us destroy him first.'

It had only happened to him once before. The ancient magic of debts was rare enough, even in war time, and depended entirely on the mutual acceptance and understanding of the honour owed between wizards. The tangle of life debts between Severus Snape, whose life had been endangered by Sirius Black's ruse and Remus Lupin's real curse, whose life had been saved by James Potter and the debt unpaid in that too-short lifetime and passed on to the son and heir-- Sirius had refused to recognise the debt he owed, so Remus had taken it on for him, a double debt he'd paid by saving Severus from another werewolf years later. That it had been done only semi-conscious of the weight of what he was taking on didn't matter to the magic, and he could remember with startling clarity the feel of it, debt satisfied and lifted, an albatross cut from about his neck and Remus unfettered for the first time in years. It was that weight that crushed Peter now, an obligation, a liability he could only remedy by saving the life of the boy who had spared him in a moment of unsullied, unimpeachable compassion.

But Harry Potter was as marked as the man he'd saved. Voldemort was out there, and would return, and, when he did, Remus intended there to be a long queue of wizards and witches between Harry and his doom.

Peter didn't fight it long. A few desperate gasps, terror borne of knowing just who he flouted and the damning probability that he'd die in the doing. Remus let him flail under it. Peter would have accepted the likelihood of his own death a long time ago. Peter wasn't a coward, not really. You could call it a kind of bravery, the things Peter had done, the crimes he'd committed and lived with whilst those he loved fell all round him. Or you call it debt, and give him the chance to redeem it.

'Say the words,' Remus pressed him, and Peter broke.

'I swear,' Peter cried brokenly, and began to weep again, though this time it was a kind of grace, a deliverance from evil. 'I'll do what I can. Anything I can. For Harry Potter.'

'And done.' Remus bit his jaws together fiercely as the vow took hold. Something off-kilter in the universe righted, in that moment, and Remus viciously hoped Voldemort, wheverever he was, could feel it.

'Moony?'

The sound of his old nick-name halted him in his stride away from Peter's cell. He turned back slowly, wondering how much he'd regret it.

'Something for me, now,' Peter said.

Ah. He should have expected a bargain. 'I've used up all my capital getting this far. I've got nothing left to go begging favours.'

Peter grabbed for the rest of what Remus had brought him, dragging the robes and bottles through the bars and nesting them away beneath his cot. His eyes gleamed in the dim as he looked up, nose twitching, scenting the wind. Scenting for a change in the wind.

'I want a guarantee.'

'I can't give you that.'

'Dumbledore can. You can ask him for me. My freedom for... for information.'

'Dumbledore already has spies,' Remus dismissed him, turning on his heel.

'And how long before Voldemort knows exactly who those spies are?'

'You're-- threatening to tell him, if we don't free you?'

'I'm telling you there will be secrets to keep.' Peter ventured back to the bars, pressing against them, anxious and worn. 'The weight of his mind, Remus. You don't know the weight of his mind. He tears you open like a man juicing an orange and plucks out what he wants. I couldn't keep those secrets if I tried. And I do know so many things, Remus. All those years with the Weasleys, full run of Hogwarts... You remember how we roamed any and everywhere at will in Hogwarts, don't you? Our Map to start it, but then all the little ways a rat could find to wriggle through-- my Lord will take all of that, and more. Harry would never be safe. If you want me to uphold my debt, help me.'

'I'll... I'll think about it.'

'That means more from you than most people.' Peter slumped away from the bars, retreating to his cot with the remaining chocolate, but he only hugged it to his chest, not eating it yet. 'You won't believe me if I tell you I never wanted to hurt you. I liked you. You were kind. And you only wanted what I did, after all. To be noticed. I thought, you know... I thought I might even be doing you a sort of a favour. Freeing you from having to toady to them.'

'You don't toady to friends.'

'Exactly. It was easy to turn them on you, you know. They weren't worthy of what you were giving up for them.'

Remus banished his patronus. The Dementors swooped in, greedy and ghoulish. Peter covered his face with his pillow.

'Harry is,' Remus said.

The pillow slipped a few inches. What Peter saw, Remus could only guess. He turned away one last time, and followed the warden out.

 

 

 

Perhaps Sirius had noticed his absence, and perhaps not. Remus doubted it; he'd timed his departure well, the tail-end of a bender that had seen Sirius away from their flat for two nights running and looked to carry on a third or even fourth. If Sirius noticed him gone, he'd probably assume Remus didn't approve, and that would drive him into some stunt designed to make it all worse in spectacular fashion. Remus returned home ready for everything to a flat in full swing, an arrest, even a fire burning down their entire building. Block. City.

It was eerie to step through their Muggle and magical locks and find himself in total silence, instead. It was a cool sunset, windows open to the breeze, but all the lights were out and everything had a dim peaceful quality. Remus wandered through the kitchen, noticing a sink full of plates and an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker, but otherwise the mess was contained to a few shirts pulled out of the laundry basket and flung carelessly over chairbacks on the rattan dinette table they never used. Remus folded them and replaced them in the basket, and ventured to Sirius's room. Steeling himself, he knocked on the wall, then peeled back the gauzy curtain that substituted for a door and poked his head through.

'Padfoot?' he called.

No answer. Most shocking of all, Sirius's bed was made. The maid had been by, then, and Sirius hadn't immediately torn the flat apart in her wake. That struck a worry in the uncomfortable spot beneath his breastbone that no amount of heartburn over orgies and civil unrest could do.

'Sirius?' He checked the bath, but there was nothing remarkable about the toilet and shower cubicle and white jacuzzi bath, strewn with unlit candles and smelling too much of vanilla. Remus followed the path through the secondary door to the small garden plot, but that, too, was empty, its single lounge empty and the book Remus had left on it damp and warped from being forgotten in a rainshower. Remus shed his cloak onto the lounge in its place and shucked his boots and heavy outer shirt-- the protective woollens he'd needed for the North Sea were stifling here, where summer never seemed to fade. He crunched the coral gravel beneath bare heels and toes as he walked the garden path around the corner to the beach head, and up onto their small covered lanai. There, at last, was a sign of the man he'd been looking for-- a large beach towel, still rolled tight where it had been set to wait use after a dip in the ocean. Remus chose the bamboo chair at the wet bar, reaching overtop to fix himself a glass of passion fruit juice. The jug was cold and welcome, and Remus let himself be lulled by the rush and ebb of the waves, so much more calming here than at Azkaban. Maybe that was what drew Sirius to settle here when no-where else had suited half so well. It was familiar, but better. But it would make returning to Britain that much harder, and Remus knew Sirius wouldn't keep away forever. Already he could sense impatience. And, if he were honest, Remus shared it. The time for doing was drawing near.

Remus was drowsy but alert when Sirius finally returned, trudging up the beach from the water. Sirius wore nothing but a brief-- very brief-- shorts that, wet and clinging to his form, left very little to the imagination. Even that much modesty surprised Remus. Sirius often swam nude, relishing the stares of anyone curious. Sirius sprawled on his favourite lounger, muscles glistening in long swooping lines.

'Where you been?' Sirius asked, tucking his hands behind his head and propping a pair of Muggle sunglasses over his eyes.

'Getting these.' Remus tossed a slim packet to the chair. Sirius scooped it up, folding back the top.

'Quidditch tickets?'

'World Cup. Box seats. I took the liberty of inviting the Weasley clan in toto. Harry's close with them, and Arthur and Molly along will help with the chaperon duties. A little adult company would be nice, too.'

'Oh huzzah. We can sit around, playing cards and complaining about the little ones. Sounds divine.'

Remus laughed despite himself. 'All right, not as such.'

'I want our own tent.'

'All right.' He finished his juice, swirling a bit of sediment in the bottom of the glass. 'Sirius... if you want... I don't mean to hold you back here. It's not my place to babysit you or take points if you get a little rowdy. I'm sorry if I've been doing that.'

Evidently Sirius hadn't been expecting that. There was no quick rejoinder, but Sirius's expression was inscrutable, behind the twin mirrors of the aviator glasses, and he made no move but to fan himself lightly with the tickets.

'Who you are, I reckon,' Sirius replied at last. 'Dumbledore made you a prefect so's you'd do exactly that.'

'I'm not a prefect now. Not even a teacher.'

'You're not saying you want to go, are you?' Sirius hesitated. 'I don't think you are. You're not, are you?'

'No.' He assuaged that fear by coming to sit on the edge of Sirius's lounger. He took the tickets for himself, flipping the edges against his thumb. 'I suppose I'm only thinking. It's--'

'Don't,' Sirius interrupted, and sat up, resting his elbows on his knees to peer over the rim of the glasses at Remus. 'Think, I mean. You think too much. If you weren't here I'd go mad, that's the truth, that's-- hell, it's always been the truth. On my own I'm a total cock-up, aren't I? The fuck did it take me twelve years in Azkaban to think about breaking out, and I did it for revenge, not to help Harry or get to you. And, Merlin's tit, I knew you were teaching there. I didn't trust you. Not for anything you'd done, but because I'm a selfish childish-- horrible-- I don't want to be just me. I like me better when you're making me be better.' He sucked in a deep breath. 'Don't leave. I'll understand if you want to, just... I hope you don't.'

'Where would I go, anyway?'

Sirius snatched off the glasses. He scraped a hand through his hair, salty locks falling over one golden shoulder. 'That's the hundred galleon question, isn't it.'

'No-where.' Remus rescued the glasses before they bent to breaking. 'I've been most my life waiting, Sirius, nothing more glamourous than that. Killing time in Thailand with you is a grand reward.'

'Waiting. Waiting for what?'

Voldemort was out there somewhere. Much closer to home, so was Harry Potter.

'Moony?'

'Fancy another swim? I might attempt not drowning. Third time'll be the charm.'

'More like fourteenth. For someone so clever you're pants at simple things.' Sirius winked suddenly, disarmingly. 'Spending too much time taking in the scenery, eh.'

It didn't immediately occur to him what Sirius meant. The moment it did, his eyes fell to the damp crotch of those white shorts, stretched thin across a bulge. He jerked his head up so fast his neck cracked.

Sirius burst out laughing.

 

 

**

 

 

They came to an agreement about the wards. Sirius gave accurate directions, Remus dragged himself along on all fours, and Sirius would never repeat or otherwise reference any noises Remus made as he barrelled through the pain.

It was certainly not the worst thing he'd ever done. Not even the worst thing he'd done blind with Sirius providing dubious guidance. The trust hurdle had been a midnight climb on the outer roof of the Astronomy Tower to rescue Sirius's toad in first year, after James had refused to risk his broom on it and Peter had pled a headache, then a stomache, then a desperate need to study for Potions, and, when Sirius had threatened to dedicate himself to destroying every one of Peter's potions for the rest of the year, Peter hadn't had to plead anything else because he had fainted dead away. Remus knew he was faking by the way he'd peek, every so often, at Sirius standing over him ranting, and that had been most the reason Remus offered to fetch Mr Ribbix for Sirius. 'I'm not afraid of heights,' he'd said, far more of ignorance than from bravado, because the highest he'd ever gone to that point was the tree outside his primary school.

But the view had been astounding. That was how he'd felt, astounded, amazed to find himself higher than the clouds, as high as the mountains, nearly as high as the moon. He'd been fearless, scrambling up the shingles, to where Sirius's fat old frog had sat croaking a paean to the stars. He'd scooped the frog up securely in an old tee-- he wasn't astounded enough to want to chase it all over the school-- but then he'd just sat for a minute with Mr Ribbix in his lap, gazing up at the whole night sky and feeling he could float out into it and be free if he just let go.

'There's some sticks, avoid those,' Sirius said.

'Left or right?'

'Left. More left. Just a little further. Okay, you're headed for the overlap, it's weakest on the left-- more left-- okay, I'm thinking, maybe it's not wisest to put your head through first? There's a lot of important things in the head.'

There were a lot of important things all over his body, but that was wise advice. Remus stuck-- no. On third thought, he backed around and stuck his foot through instead. It felt a little like being electrocuted by a buzz saw. He gritted his teeth and backed through an agonising limb at a time. Sirius snickered at him sometime around the point of backing his bum through. Remus cursed at him, so Sirius came at him in a rush and gave him a good helping boot to the shoulder the rest of the way out the wards.

Remus tumbled pot over kettle and landed on his back with the air knocked out of him. Dazed, he stared up, and was still staring blankly when Sirius tired of waiting and threw a rock through the wards at him. It bounced off his chin.

Oh. He freed his wand and flicked it at the wards. It took a few tries to bring them down, they were that well established, but the infrastructure was old-fashioned, a traditional build-up preferred a few generations ago, specially in Europe. Once he recognised the pattern, he knew where to find the weak link, especially now his brain was working again away from the influence of whichever layer had been turning his mind into coddled eggs. The weak point was a foundational ward that was designed merely to bind the others, not block anything particular, and it was vulnerable to undercutting.

'Now!' he yelled, and Sirius threw both arms about his head and took it at a run. Remus held it all from crashing back down til Sirius was through.

'Ohhh, that's not good,' Sirius said then, slowing to a stop.

'No.'

'You think that's the owner of the portkey?'

'I think that's the man with the memory Dumbledore wanted.' Sirius offered a hand, and Remus hauled himself upright. Together they stood looking at the corpse that dangled from the eave of the little shack ahead of them. Carved into its naked, withered chest was the Dark Mark.

Sirius cleared his throat. 'So the wards were... what? Designed to keep anyone from finding the place? But why? During the war-- back-- you know, back then, they, er, You-Know-Who always wanted everyone to know when he'd offed some poor sod.'

'I don't think the wards were Voldemort's, but good point.' Remus forced himself to look away, look anywhere else. The shack was nothing special, just a one-room cottage, barely more than a hunting lodge, but well enough preserved given what had to be years of neglect. 'That's interesting, too. You'd think wild animals would have colonised this by now. And taken care of the... remains... as well. What kept them out?'

'Maybe it was these.' Sirius knelt at the corpse's blackened feet. 'These are shells, I think. Big ones. What hatches around here?'

'In the mountains of Albania?' Remus crouched by him to examine them. Sirius was wise enough not to touch them directly, using a stick from the ground to overturn a few of the cracked bits. Whitish and oblong, about the size of two fists, and leathery, not hardened, which ruled out occamies, brocks, and, thank God, dragons. 'I don't think those are magical at all,' he said slowly. 'If anything, they look like snake eggs.'

Sirius backed away hastily. 'Big snakes,' he said shakily.

'Pythons get quite large. Boas. I don't know enough about either to say whether they clutch in Albania.' Remus gingerly lifted one of the shells, mostly intact but for the small perforation where the baby had escaped, and found an empty pocket in which to store it. 'We should bury him, shouldn't we? Or maybe tell the Aurors about it? Or whoever Albanian Aurors are?'

'Tonks,' Sirius decided. 'She'll know what to do. And how to keep it quiet. Don't suppose anyone's been missing the dear old duffer? Odd the portkey's been active all this time, and the wards, too.'

'Almost like someone thought they might be coming back and didn't want anything disturbed.' Remus rose, gnawing his lip as he thought. 'Let's hold off telling Tonks just yet. We should leave, though. Something's not right, here, and I don't want to trip any unpleasant calling cards.'

'Leaving means going back through the wards,' Sirius pointed out.

Remus grimaced. 'Brilliant plan, Monsieur Padfoot. Really top snuff. I've thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon.'

'Do you know?' Sirius tossed him a bright grin. 'I have, rather.'

It was hard to stay angry. Remus didn't try. He did make sure Sirius didn't see him smiling, though. It would only encourage him, and reasonable men knew their limits.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'A man with a club is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated.'
> 
> ~Jack London, Call of the Wild

The owl was awaiting them at their hotel. It gave them a malevolent stare with a bulging gold eye as Sirius unlocked their room and pushed in. Remus checked their window, sure he'd shut and locked it before they'd left. 'Did it come down the chimney?' he wondered, sidling past Sirius to check the flue.

'Recognise it?' Sirius asked, though he exhibited no wariness as he approached the bird with a low coo and beckoning fingers. 'Who knew we'd be in Albania other than Dumbledore?'

'Your cousin Tonks might've told someone.'

Sirius loosened the jesses tying a message to the bird's clawed foot and extended an arm. The owl climbed aboard with great dignity, and allowed Sirius to carry it from its perch on the chairback to the footboard of the bed. 'Long trip from England,' Sirius noted, as he unrolled the note and read it. A moment later, he showed it to Remus, brows arched in a silent question.

Remus held it to the light. In familiar spiky writing, it said only,  _Where in bloody hell have you got to? Return immediately, I must speak to you urgently._

No signature. But he knew who it was from. And he knew Sirius wouldn't like it, whatever that urgent subject might be.

He dithered over it as he crumpled the note and summoned a flame in the ashy hearth, brief enough to burn the note to cinders and emit a small gasp of heat before dying. 'Sirius... Well, we're done here, aren't we, really. I don't see what else there is to learn-- there's no retrieving whatever memory Dumbledore thought our dead man had for him. And it's no different tackling the full moon in a Thai warehouse than the Albanian mountains, come to that.'

'One's nicer,' Sirius muttered, bribing the owl with a biscuit from the sideboard and stroking its feathered crest. 'We can go, I suppose.'

Unspoken, in that: were they going back the same as they'd come? Things had been said. What would follow them home? Was it home anymore, or just another way-station on the journey somewhere new? Remus didn't know what Sirius thought, what he felt, what he wanted, any more than he knew himself.

'World Cup soon,' he said, as if it mattered which country they stood in before they took their next international portkey. Then, slowly, resolving it within himself, he added, 'Be good to see Harry. Maybe... maybe we could invite him to Thailand after. I think he'd like the beaches, and to see you.'

He'd hit on just the right thing, for once. Sirius's face lit with a grin in spontaneous combustion. 'Still the clever one, aren't you? Brilliant, Moony.'

It was generally ill-advised to bring an animal along on a portkey trip, so they released the owl back for the lengthy flight home before they checked out of the hotel. Sirius, at least, was flush with adventure, for all it had been rather abbreviated and questionably useful, and walked tall with colour in his cheeks and a skip in his step. Remus followed at a distance, feeling drained. Weary. Maybe a little more serious than weary. I'm getting old, he thought, then-- I am old. He touched the ache in his side, the relentless clench of muscles at the back of his neck, his creaking knees.

Their Thai flat had a faintly stale feel to it, for all they'd only been gone a few days. Sirius went about opening doors for the breeze as Remus dropped their bag in the laundry basket and let his dragging feet lead him out to the lanai. He heard the kettle click off when it reached the boil, heard Sirius call out something that seemed to need an answer, but the sunlight was calling louder. He leant against a wooden post with the sun warm on his face, closing his eyes to the sight of the bright cloudless sky and brighter dazzle of the ocean. Harry would like it here, wouldn't he. He'd probably never seen the ocean. Remus couldn't imagine those Muggles allowed him out of doors where their leash on him would tempt a break-away. Was it foolish to extend an invitation Dumbledore wouldn't honour? Maybe if they invited Sirius's cousin Tonks along, surely she was one of Dumbledore's trusted few, too young to remember the war properly, too young to have been burnt by it. Harry wouldn't question an Auror accompanying his visit to his godfather if it was done under the guise of family, and Dumbledore might welcome some sign they were cooperating with the terms of Sirius's unofficial, tentative freedom.

They. Remus. He'd never told Sirius the truth, had he. Never told him his freedom was on lease, not bought outright. He didn't think Fudge would show up with a Dementor in tow to haul Sirius back to Azkaban, but neither did he think Fudge would lift a finger to clear Sirius's name with actual proof of innocence. The wizarding world might never know Peter Pettigrew had been a decade in hiding with the Weasleys. God, those poor children-- drawn into evil's orbit no less than Harry, shedding the horrors of the Chamber of Secrets just in time to learn they'd harboured a Death Eater in their very beds. Chance was too cruel. If it was fate, that was crueller. They were all of them walking wounded, weren't they, Sirius and Harry, Ronald and Ginevra and Percy and those cheeky twins, Snape who'd done any and everything to survive, Remus who'd survived despite every attempt not to--

'Moony?'

He woke with a blink. He was flat, dizzy hands stretching to feel the cushion beneath him. Flat, laid out on one of the loungers, and the sun had set, leaving behind a tableau of lavender purple and mango orange and the nearly round plate of the moon, rising high over the deep black water.

Sirius stroked hair back from his forehead, and looked up at someone who hovered, felt but unseen, nearby. 'He's not well enough. You don't know what happened to him in-- the places we've been, recently.'

'I'm all right,' Remus said muzzily, trying to push himself upright. Sirius pressed him back, but hardly needed to; he had no strength in his arms, could barely raise himself an inch before he sank back, exhausted. Sirius put a glass to his lips, emitting an odour of strong alcohol, but before he could drink another hand intruded to snatch it away.

'It could adversely affect the potion's efficacy,' Severus Snape scolded Sirius in his old imperious way, arrogant and disdainful at once and yet tender, secretly tender as he pressed cool fingers to Remus's wrist to take his pulse, to his cheek to test him for fever.

'I'm all right,' Remus said again, letting his head fall back to the cushion. They stood over him, a great black crow to his left and a white linen angel to the right, their dark hair burnished gold with the light at their backs. His heart skipped beats as he stared blearily up at them. Skipped too many beats, beat too weakly, but he accepted the cup Severus pressed on him with a hand that was steady, for once.

'I thought you weren't bringing the Wolfsbane.'

'I'm not,' Snape answered. His beaky nose angled away, eyes turning toward the waving palm fronds. 'I don't owe you my reasons--'

'You owe an explanation if you want him to drink whatever that is,' Sirius said stridently, as if he were repeating, if in rising tones, something he'd already declared. His hands were fists planted on his hips, his jaws grinding. 'It doesn't look like what he had last time--'

'Oh, you're a Potions Master now, Black? It doesn't  _look_ like--'

'I took a NEWT in Potions as you bloody well know, and if that's the same brew I'll eat your mangy shorts!'

'No-one needs convincing of your libertine and dissolute ways, I assure you.'

'Libertine?' Sirius barked a laugh. 'Remus, do the right thing and dump that foul grog in the sink.'

'Does Dumbledore know?' was all Remus asked.

Snape's shoulders tightened under the drape of his black robes. 'I didn't ask for his opinion on the matter,' he replied finally.

'If he finds out--

'What if he does?' Snape shrugged jaggedly. 'The reasons for withholding wolfsbane from the market have changed. And in any case Albus has dispensed with keeping you from Harry Potter's side--'

'What?' Sirius demanded, keenly picking up on a crucial point Remus had been gingerly eliding since their re-acquaintance in the Shrieking Shack, but Remus flushed and did not answer, and in any case Snape rolled over him with only a slight rise in tone to indicate he'd even heard.

'And precautions are therefore warranted and justified, and how I choose to contribute my bit does not need his express permission nor his meddling guidance.' Having wound himself up to an impressive height, Snape trembled there at the acme, and then tipped over the slope. 'And never will, if he doesn't find out.'

Remus said, 'Don't risk this, for me.'

'I don't need your permission either, Lupin. Call it... call it returning a favour.'

That dull ache joined the other thousand or so regrets he boxed away nightly. 'Don't do it for that, either. It was freely given.'

'What's ever been free?' Snape shook his head. 'Just-- accept it, Remus.'

The potion in the cup gave off an unfortunately familiar stench. He knew the smell of wolfsbane-- but this wasn't the potion Snape had been brewing for him all year at Hogwarts. The merest whiff of that had been enough to drop his blood pressure. Whatever this was, it tugged at a different memory-- bone-chilling cold of winter, clean snow, men huddled for warmth at an inadequate fire, raising a grim toast to the one who bade them drink or leave.

Fenrir Greyback had brought him his first taste of wolfsbane, that dark year when the war began in earnest. Remus hadn't known it yet, but Snape had brewed that, too. Enchanted flowers boiled in a battered tin cup.

Remus drank. Sirius hovered uneasily, sinking onto the lounger with him as he gagged it down, heaving to get air into burning lungs, but Snape took his hand and steadied him.

'There's enough for two more nights, til the full moon,' Snape told Sirius, but his dark eyes stayed angled down on Remus. 'Confine him for the transformation. It may help, it may not. If he should suffer unduly, owl me immediately.'

'What "may"? If you poison him, _Snivellus_ \--' Remus caught him by the wrist as Sirius leant over the lounger threateningly. Sirius subsided, unhappily, gripping Remus pointedly by the hands, even going so far as to raise the left to his lips and press a kiss to the knuckles. Remus felt heat flash across his cheeks again, but noted with confusion that Snape first bit down what appeared to be a blisteringly hot sneer, and then something more resigned than that.

'Owl me,' he repeated, and left, his boots thudding on the cool tile floors of the flat. The slam of a door announced his departure.

Sirius was scowling when Remus could bear to glance at him. 'If I thought you'd tell me, I'd ask,' Sirius said, and sighed. 'What you don't get yourself into without me.'

'I don't suppose I entirely... entirely meant to do.' Not the clever one. The tongue-tied one, suddenly, and he couldn't blame the wolfsbane. That mistake was all his. He grimaced, and tried again. 'I... the years you were... gone-- not, not gone, I--'

'Wrongfully imprisoned,' Sirius supplied, a hint of a grin cracking the grim porcelain of his face. 'In the clink, asea with no rowboat, surrounded by sharks, only dear Cousin Bella for company. So, sharks.'

'Padfoot.'

'I don't care what you did.' Sirius touched Remus's chin, followed the etched lines beside his mouth, the crowsfeet at his eyes. 'I'm only sorry it's scarred you so.'

'It would have happened anyway, maybe.'

'No. No,' Sirius said again, when Remus opened his mouth to protest. 'I lost Jamie and Lils. I would have fought Hell itself for you. No more pain. I won't allow it.'

He searched for some ironically undercutting remark that wouldn't sting too much as it underlined the sheer silliness of that ringingly-delivered command. It was the oddest thing, though. He had no words for it. He could only smile, helpless.

 

 

**

 

 

The World Cup was several of Remus's nightmares, rolled into one horrific package.

He had never especially been a man for crowds, but he'd long since learnt there was no-one more invisible than a man without money or power. No-one paid him any particular attention here, but the press of human bodies was a pulsating, roaring mass of flesh that overwhelmed even that defence. There was no separating the orderly queues at booths selling everything from ices and savouries to flags and team logo trinkets from the ragged waves of folk just trying to locate their tents. Young children stood wailing, separated from their parents, as the occasional Ministry volunteer in brightly coloured stoles over their formal robes roamed, sweating and harried, from one problem to another. Remus had cause to be thankful the usual sensitivity of his senses following the moon had been given plenty of time to fade, for everywhere was noise and smell and shouting and eye-popping assaults of light-- fireworks everywhere he turned, sparking wands raising cheers and laughter, and, over all that, the stadium arena with its strobe lights and constant audio checks attempting to drown out the crowds with all its might.

Sirius appeared as shaken as Remus felt. For a man who'd been confined in near solitary darkness for twelve years, it was no doubt an onslaught beyond imagining. 'I'm a fool,' Remus said, though in the press all about them Sirius could hardly hear him. Remus seized him by the elbow, halting their slogging progress uphill, and tapped his wand to first one side and then the other of Sirius's head.  _'Obturo,'_ he said, and Sirius sagged in relief. Right quick he performed the same service for Remus, and plunged him into welcome quiet.

Thus insulated, they completed their climb, signalling each other by mostly useless gestures whether to turn this way or that. Their ears blocked, they had no hope of hearing the Weasleys, when at last they could be located, but in the end that was unnecessary. Sirius winked at Remus, ducked into the shadow of two tents crammed close together, and emerged as a long-legged, shaggy black dog. He wove a tight circle about Remus's legs, nipped at his dangling hand, and barked. Remus assumed, anyway. He wondered if the ear-plugging charm had held through the animagus transformation. But that didn't matter so much to a dog. Sirius put his nose to the air, sniffing, and grinned a doggish grin. He took off at a job, and Remus followed.

They wove a manic path through the thousands of tents, Sirius always just enough ahead that Remus had to search for him after every other turn. At last he was well and truly lost, and he cancelled his own ear-plugging charm, calling out tentatively. 'Sir-- er, Padfoot? Pads, where've you got to? Padfoot?'

'Professor!'

Remus acquired an escort nearly as suddenly as he'd lost Sirius. It was the twins, one to either side in matching jumpers topped with scarves in Irish colours. 'George,' Remus greeted the one to his left, 'Fred,' to the right. 'Thank goodness, I feel I've been wandering for hours.'

'Pardon, Professor, but were you by any chance plaintively hollering, er... Padfoot?'

'It's a, a sort of nickname for my friend.'

'Is it?' George asked innocently, which put Remus properly on edge. 'Funny sort of nickname, isn't it, Fred? Almost as funny as, say, Moony.'

'Now who would call themselves Moony, I wonder?' Fred contemplated. 'Almost as interesting as Prongs, innit. Now a Prongs I can imagine.'

Remus sighed. 'I ought to have known you two had the map. That at least explains why I could never find you after a prank.'

They leapt in front of him to slap palms in a brief jig. 'We knew it, we _knew_ it! You're him!' With a flourish they threw themselves into low bows. 'We're not worthy,' said Fred. 'But we're trying our damnedest,' George added.

'Professor Lupin?'

'Hullo, Ginny.' Remus smiled to see her emerge from the tent with the rest of her family and a re-humanised Sirius behind her. 'You're looking very well.'

She didn't quite smile. He hadn't had one out of her yet, but he couldn't begrudge it. Still, there was a calm kind of pride in the lift of her chin. 'Thank you, sir,' she said. 'So do you.'

'Liar,' he teased, and her lips twitched a bit. 'Ron, Hermione, it's good to see you both again. Percy,' he added, only to find Percy marching stiffly past him. 'I-- er, I...'

'Remus!' Arthur clapped him by the shoulder, seizing his hand for a solid shake. 'My word, it's chaos out here, isn't it? Mad chaos. Overbooked by hundreds, did you hear? Absolute scandal, someone was trying to make a quick galleon off bogus sales, and that's not to mention the Muggle Baiting incidents-- Aurors everywhere--'

'Professor,' Harry greeted him softly, standing awkwardly at the tent flaps, canvas draped over one shoulder as he stood one trainer atop the other, quick nervous fingers twining a strap.

'Harry,' Remus said, when he could manage it. Arthur was giving him a long look, and so was Sirius, mouth grim and flat where he stood a little to the side.

'Thank you again for the tickets,' Harry said. He cocked his chin to his chest, shoulders hunched defencively. He was a picture of misery even as he said, 'It's exciting, isn't it? I'm glad... I'm really glad I got to come.'

He could no more stop himself reaching out than he could stop the moon's effect on his limbs. He felt a bit moon-struck, helpless and furious and ready to kill. His finger tilted Harry's chin upward, so he could get a proper look at the split lip and blacked eye. Harry tilted his head away.

Arthur coughed. 'Molly's bringing a feast for our supper. I'm just off to meet her at the porkey. Boys, come along-- yes, that means you, Fred, George, stop pestering poor Sirius. Percy, thank you-- no, Harry, you enjoy your reunion! Tales to tell, I've no doubt, you'll be wanting to hear all about the Orientals, I imagine!' Arthur herded his sons along expertly even as he nodded Ginny into place beside Harry. Harry, Remus noted, did not seem to mind overmuch.

Remus cleared his throat. It took a few tries. 'Percy seems a bit put out with me.'

'He'll get over it,' Ginny said. 'He's being a prat and I've told him so.'

'It's not undeserved.' With great effort he tore his eyes away from Harry's bruised face. 'Not least for leaving without saying good-bye.'

'After being chased off by a mob,' Sirius corrected tartly. 'Let's not go begging for faults, shall we. Girls, Harry, everyone inside-- I've brought masses of gifts, it'll take us an hour to unwrap it all!'

Remus caught Sirius by the wrist as the young ones went in. 'What do we do?' he asked sharply, quietly. 'What can we do?'

'Give him time and space to tell us the truth.' Sirius smiled. It was hollow. 'It took me years, didn't it. Let's hope Harry's more trusting.'

'I can't bear it. What these children-- what these children have been asked to survive--'

Sirius kissed him swiftly. It took him like an electric shock, and gone nearly as quickly. 'I know,' Sirius said, and went in.

 

 

 

The game was entertaining, as Quidditch went. James had been mad for it, with Sirius along for the broomride. Peter and Remus had been faithful spectators, though not for any particular love of the game. Peter had been a Puddlemere loyalist, but Remus had been more interested in the schoolwork that would provide him his meagre living and had usually brought his assignments with him to Gryffindor matches, and begged off games that didn't involve their House. But that had left him with a dozen memories of glancing up from the pages of his Arithmancy or Charms texts to admire James streaking through the air with that irrepressible grin, Sirius throwing himself through brutally graceful dives and swoops in chase of the quaffles. He had believed them quite the best players at Hogwarts, not even just their year, til he'd seen Harry Potter on a broom. Harry had that deadly finesse, had his father's joy in a fight well fought, but there was something free about the way Harry Potter flew that no-one else Remus had ever seen had. Free only in the wind, free when the only force to hold him back was gravity and even that could be defeated with enough determination. Determined-- that was Harry Potter to the bones.

He got no chances to speak to Harry alone, but didn't seek them all that hard. Harry lost some of his natural reserve in the protective cocoon of his friends surrounding him. Ron and Hermione had pride of place to either side, but the Golden Trio made room for the other children and there was hardly a still moment in the knot of teenagers all crowding the edge of the box. Excellent seats, even if Remus had spent an appalling amount of Sirius's restored fortune on it-- they were just beside the Minister's box, though happily not within sight of its occupants. Remus would go cheerfully the rest of his life if he never spotted Cornelius Fudge again. The children seemed to feel much the same when they discovered the Malfoys were special guests of the Minister only just the other side of the wall from them-- a preening Lucius Malfoy and his haughty son Draco had been visible during the opening address from Fudge, their images projected and magnified for all to see. Remus turned a deaf ear to the increasingly creative insults he could hear being exchanged by the twins and Ron, but Sirius sniggered when Harry contributed a particularly stinging critique of the younger Malfoy's unfortunately ferrety nose. If it happened to be true, Remus carefully did not allow himself to smile about it.

The unrivalled star of the match was Viktor Krum on the Bulgarian team. How Sirius had managed to learn anything at all about current Quidditch Remus couldn't begin to guess, but Sirius was in the thick of a discussion on statistics with Cedric Diggory, who had designs on professional Quidditch himself-- so announced Amos, his father, anyway, to a mortified blush from Cedric. Cedric had given Remus a warm greeting, all the more welcome since Amos made a point of finding a seat well across their box from Remus and shooting him conspicuously suspicious looks every quarter hour. Idly Remus considered mentioning that Cedric had been one of the Hufflepuffs who'd acted so bravely to get Remus out of Hogwarts before it had gone ugly-- but only idly. He didn't want to put Cedric in any trouble for that foolishly selfless act. It was a mostly pleasant day, with good weather, the bright chatter of the children cheering themselves hoarse, and Molly's home-cooked feasts to keep them stuffed at every opportunity. If not for the long stretches in which Remus had nothing to do but think, it would have been nearly perfect.

Unbidden, though, unwanted, traitorous thoughts did keep creeping in. Like-- how no-one might notice if he slipped away in all the to-do to pay a visit to Harry's aunt and uncle. At the fighting end of a wand. Or a fist. A fist might be very, very satisfying.

Like-- how no-one might notice if he slipped away in all the to-do and didn't return. Sirius might look for him, but not for long. He'd stay near Harry, now. The Thai flat would be empty within a week, Remus would bet his last galleon. The holiday from reality was over, and one glimpse of Sirius's shining eyes, lingering on his godson, put paid to any notion of keeping them apart now. Sirius would return to his family home in London and make Harry his heir and everything else he'd been planning for all those years imprisoned in Azkaban, and Harry would learn what it was to have an adult who cared about nothing more than his well-being and happiness. A father. There wasn't a need for an old schoolteacher in that relationship.

Or an old schoolmate. Sirius wouldn't need him anymore, not if he had Harry. Sirius was a damn sight healthier than Remus these days, all considered. He'd do fine without Remus hovering over him. Impeding him. Needing him.

Thinking about where he could even go. Remus was without a home, that was nothing new, without prospects of work, that was no new hardship either, except for one thing. The entire wizarding community of Britain now knew his name, his face, and the damning fact of his condition. He could go back to the Muggle world, or France, maybe... he had few good memories of France, but he'd be just another immigrant there, picking up odd jobs for cash and scraping out a living with the other thousands of undocumented lost souls on the edges of civilisation. If he could muster no enthusiasm he could at least make that into a plan. He'd been living most his life on that plan.

Hell, maybe he'd even be useful again if he left Britain. Dumbledore had few agents outside England, much less on the Continent. Wouldn't that be an irony. Reconciliation out of sheer necessity. He'd promised, once, to come when called. He wondered if Dumbledore could humble himself enough for that.

Didn't have to wonder if he'd be able to swallow his own pride. What little he'd ever had was dead on the floor of Dumbledore's office, somewhere between being booted out of Hogwarts for caring too much and using the last of his leverage to visit Peter in Azkaban. If Dumbledore came to him, he supposed he'd save his protest for some silent moment of resentment. Per the usual.

Arthur brought beer for the men. Remus drank in steady swallows.

The match dragged on through the first evening and into the night hours. Hermione and Ginny had migrated to seats in the back of the box, dozing under cloaks donated by the adults. The older boys were still watching avidly, but their enthusiasm didn't carry them to their feet to cheer quite so often now. Harry had been seated since supper, and now propped his drooping head up with a fist, yawning discreetly. Percy had long ago tired of the fuss and was curled up beneath one of the lamps with a large book. Remus ached for him, always setting himself apart. If Percy had spoken five words today, they'd been limited to 'Yes', 'No', and 'Thank you, Mum'. It wasn't just losing out on the fun of watching a game with his family-- Remus understood quite well how that could pall when an active mind demanded more stimulation. It was the inability to relax those rigid shoulders and enjoy anything at all that worried Remus. That would pall with time, too, and it was all too easy to miss the window for fixing it.

When Arthur and Molly announced sometime just before midnight they planned to seek their beds, Remus rose with them and helped them guide the sleepily protesting children toward the door. Cedric wished him good-night and promised to fetch them with an urgent owl if the match looked to be turning, which mollified the boys. Fred begged to remain, though George seemed happy enough for a flat surface, so for once the twins separated. Percy came only when Remus had called his name three times, and then he hurried to get ahead of the others so he wouldn't, Remus assumed, be stuck in back position with Remus and the risk of awkward questions. Remus confined himself to guiding Ginny along with a hand on her shoulder, carrying the remains of their dinner basket under the other arm. At least it had got cooler with the sunset. The light breeze on the stairs revived him somewhat, long enough to notice that Sirius was watching them go-- watching him go-- long enough to pretend all was well and he had nothing more in mind than a good long rest.

But once all the young ones had been put to bed, and Arthur and Molly bade goodnight and promised to meet for breakfast before they resumed their vigil in the box, Remus found himself wandering past the small tent he and Sirius had set up earlier. Tired as he was, he was in no mood to sleep. It was almost peaceful, too, with the distant roar of the stadium muted by the calm of night. He walked without minding his direction, confident he could find his way back with a 'Point Me' spell if he got lost. It seemed no time at all before he'd reached the forest on the outskirts of the camping grounds. Here the comforting night sounds of Britain waited for him-- the hoots of wizarding owls lining branches overhead, badgers scurrying from their sets in search of a midnight meal, foxes on the prowl with the temptation of all that human food nearby, some of it surely unprotected and forgotten. And the other birds whose song he'd unconsciously missed in Thailand-- redwings and fieldfares, woodcocks, starlings. If he wandered far enough he might find a lake with plover and oystercatchers. Living on the edge of a city, even if they did have beachfront to themselves, had drowned out the little familiar comforts of the place he still called home, even if he only let himself remember when there was no-one to observe the hurt.

He slid into a seat at the base of a tree, wiping his cheeks on his sleeve. He wasn't crying, not really. Only there was too much inside him, and he didn't know what to do with any of it. He should sleep, really. It wouldn't feel so awfully big in the morning.

But he didn't move for a long time. Just him, and the wildlife, and the waning moon, shining down from the dark sky.

 

 

 

The players had been granted a brief rest in the small hours of the morning when only the hardiest fans had stayed in the stands to watch. By the time the crowds returned refreshed and eager for more, the score had shifted only a little, with two more goals to the Irish. Remus volunteered himself to the task of chaperoning anyone who wanted a walk-about in the stalls selling goods, and indulged himself in a sausage roll from a baker and a cap in orange and green that would clash horrifically with Sirius's olive skin and was therefore the perfect present.

Harry got a cap, too, but only to hide his infamous black hair and the scar. Still, word passed around-- Harry Potter was out at shopping!-- and soon merchants were interrogating every group of teenaged buyers. Remus intercepted the first extravagant gift loudly produced for the _Boy Who_ \--

'Thank you for your  _discretion_ ,' Remus murmured meaningfully, and moved Harry and the others along as quickly as they could duck the attention of heads turning.

'Does this always happen?' Cedric asked curiously, quick to catch on and putting himself between Harry and the crowds. 'I only meant, at school, you're...'

'The weird one,' Harry supplied, with a little twitch of his mouth that might have been a smile, but it never bloomed.

'You are weird, mate,' Ron said easily, and Hermione giggled at Harry rolling his eyes.

'Not weird,' Cedric clarified earnestly. 'Just, you know, at school no-one pays this much mind to you, you know?'

'Except when they think I'm the Prince of Slytherin, or bait for Sirius Black, mad murderer, or bad at Potions or good at Quidditch or whatever it is this week.'

'Why is your scar so famous?'

That question came from Percy, and it came barbed. Harry tugged his cap lower, til it covered even his eyebrows and endangered the rims of his glasses.

'Obviously his scar is famous because--' began Hermione.

'I mean really--  _how_ is it famous?' Percy interrupted. 'If Dumbledore whisked you away into hiding the very night You Know Who attacked.'

'Well, someone must've seen it before then,' Ginny reasoned.

'But who? Black was off murdering Pettigrew, or being framed for it anyway, and Dumbledore must've been the one who took you away--'

'Hagrid did,' Harry said. 'Although he must've given me to Dumbledore, yeah. Dumbledore's the one who... Dumbledore's the one who left me with the Dursleys.'

'Hagrid does say a lot of things he's not meant to,' Ron admitted reluctantly, after the uncomfortable silence on the other side of that name grew too thick.

'Oh, but Hagrid wouldn't!' Hermione exclaimed. 'And anyway, we're the ones who listen to Hagrid, no-one else does. I mean... you know what I mean.'

'So the only one who could have told the whole wizarding world what You Know Who did to you is Dumbledore,' Percy concluded in that abrupt voice. Something was building there. For the life of him, Remus couldn't say what.

'I don't know,' Harry said softly. 'It doesn't matter, I suppose.'

'It matters,' Percy overrode him harshly. 'If you didn't want people to know and he told anyway. Why does he get to decide for you?'

'Percy,' Ginny said softly. 'It's all right.'

'It's not. It's not fair, or right, why's he get to decide for all of us, why's he-- he--' Percy's chest heaved. He looked away when Ginny took his hand. 'It's not right.'

'I'm sure he only thought he was doing what's best,' Hermione tried. 'What's wisest. There must be a reason he told about Harry's scar, don't you think, Professor?'

'What's the reason for leaving Potter with those Muggles then?' Percy demanded stridently, and wouldn't be calmed by his sister's soothing grip. 'I don't care how many titles he has, he's not right about everything!'

Remus separated brother and sister and pulled Percy toward a little alley between kiosks and rubbish bins. Percy came sullenly, but he came, and Remus put his back to the other children so there'd be no eavesdropping. Percy kicked at a bin and wouldn't meet his eyes, but Remus waited him out.

'Are you going to tell me I'm wrong?' Percy demanded.

'No,' Remus said.

'Are you going to--' The answer sunk in. Percy dared a sidelong glance. 'Mum and Dad say--'

'They're not here. I wasn't planning on telling them.'

'It's not fair,' Percy challenged him. 'One look at Potter's face and you can see it's madness to send him back there. And Black was in Azkaban all those years and Pettigrew was in our house, in my room and Ron's, and Dumbledore should have known! He should have known about the Chamber too, if he's so wise, he should have--'

'Maybe no-one is that wise.'

'Then you should do something!'

'What?' Percy stood there struggling with it, sweat on his temples and in the peach-fuzz growth of what would one day be a beard, tragedy in every line of him. 'What should I do?' Remus asked quietly.

'Something... I don't know.'

'Me, either.' Remus grimaced, unnoticed, for Percy was scowling ferociously at his shoes. 'I wish I did. I'd do it. There's no lack of people who'd do something, if we could just figure out what.'

'You do know, though, don't you? You're not like the other professors, you actually  _do_ things, you see things--'

Percy choked himself off. Ah, Remus thought. And damn Dumbledore anyway, because hearing a thing like that should break your heart.

And Percy was right, anyway. Right about the responsibility. The duty.

'Thank you,' Remus told him. 'I think I needed to hear that. Percy-- anger is all right. Anger is important, and necessary, sometimes. Just don't let it be everything.'

'Professor Lupin?'

He calmed Percy's jump with a touch to his arm. 'Yes, Hermione?' he asked, turning to face the girl tugging tentatively at his shirt.

'I'm sorry to interrupt, only Harry's gone off, sir.'

That captured his whole attention. 'Gone off?'

'He was upset by... the discussion,' Hermione said carefully, in deference perhaps to Percy hovering there at Remus's elbow, 'but he's awfully quick sometimes, and Ron lost sight of him up the lane, and now we're not sure...'

Remus was already moving. It wasn't horribly crowded, not with the game ongoing, but the merchant market was heavily travelled, and at the moment there were a hundred children Harry's height milling about the stalls. And every other one of them wore the same cap Harry had on. Fuck.

'Get Sirius and your parents,' Remus told Percy.

'He might have just gone off to be--'

'Then we'll all be very relieved, but of all people that boy shouldn't be alone.' He didn't wait around to argue. 'Point Me Harry Potter,' he directed his wand, and followed its twitch at a trot.

 

 

 

The Weasleys joined the search, and Sirius as Padfoot tried to follow his scent. Locating charms ended in the same place every time-- the stadium. But Harry wasn't in the box, and if he'd voluntarily lost himself in the crowd of thousands in the stands, Remus would eat Snape's mangy old shorts too.

He waited no more than twenty minutes to send a message via Patronus. Tonks was his first thought, an Auror and one who could be trusted, and one who arrived promptly with two other familiar faces from the Order of the Phoenix, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Hestia Jones. But at half an hour Remus was already fearing the worst, and damning himself for not foreseeing the possibilities. He'd been focussed on Percy, he hadn't been thinking of danger, not at something so innocent as a Quidditch game, but all those merchants calling Harry's name-- he'd painted a target on Harry and placed him so enticingly in the best possible place for a kidnapping, unsupervised in a crowd. And more fool he, for he'd gone to Peter for this very reason, so sure something more was coming, so sure Voldemort wouldn't retreat that easily. At an hour gone, he sent another Patronus to Dumbledore.

The match went on, play uninterrupted as a small group of people grew increasingly frantic. Shacklebolt had gone to the Minister's box for a quiet word with Fudge, a necessity Remus chafed at, but they needed Aurors. Bartemius Crouch was in attendance, that was one small blessing, and immediately authorised deployment of several units to search for Harry. Dumbledore went straight to Fudge when he arrived, Remus would learn later, for by then Remus was prowling the labyrinthine understructure of the stadium calling Harry's name til he was hoarse. What transpired in the Minister's box would become the stuff of legend, or at least the subject of a hundred breathless articles from rags like  _The Daily Prophet_.

Albus Dumbledore demanded not only units of Aurors on the scene, but a stop to the World Cup with all portkeys closed and every body in attendance held for at least an hour, long enough to reveal anyone hiding behind Polyjuice or some other malevolent glamour.

Fudge, appalled, refused to interrupt play til any actual danger to Harry Potter could be established. Crouch volunteered more staff from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but warned against an announcement of sealing the portkeys-- those who could Apparate would do so, and there would be no tracking them in the chaos. If Harry Potter was kidnapped, in fact, it was likely he'd already been removed from the area.

He is here, Dumbledore had replied, refusing to be moved on this despite all the logical reasons it could not be so. He is not lost to us-- not yet.

Perhaps, Minister, Lucius Malfoy was said to have intervened, though who exactly had leaked the conversation was unverified, perhaps the Headmaster (not the Chief Warlock, no, only 'the Headmaster') might do better to contact the boy's guardians than raise a hue and cry where he had no authority and no proof anything was wrong.

Barty Crouch had tried to summon his house elf to carry a message back to the London Ministry headquarters. She did not answer that summons. She was found, hours later, clutching a man's cloak and weeping uncontrollably about 'Master Barty'. Someone present-- anonymously conveying their witness to the newspapers-- recalled that Crouch had been pale and agitated, that his reaction had been cruel and dismissive, that he had freed her for the small offence of failing to appear when called, even if it had been unusual circumstances. In her distress and freed from the obligation to silence, the little elf blurted out the whole story.

Barty Crouch  _Junior_ was alive. And had come, disguised by an invisibility cloak, bound under the Imperius cast by his own father, who had thought the World Cup might spark some sign of life in the son whose spirit had faded these many years of captivity in his own home. Crouch Senior loved his son, despite his crimes, but had been lulled by the passage of time and forgot who it was he dealt with. He'd allowed the house elf more and more autonomy with his son's care. And it hadn't been all that hard for poor Barty to convince her to pick up a wizard's wand, so many of them carelessly laying about with their owners focussed on the match, and sever the spell which had kept her lovely young charge so miserably chained.

Where he had gone after he was freed, the elf did not know. He had kissed her cheek, thanked her, and vanished in the cloak. Even with her elvish magic, she could not track him. She had searched most desperately, and found at last the cloak, and no sign of its owner.

Remus read all of it later. How Fudge had railed against Crouch's feeble-minded sentiment and sworn to see him in chains. How Fudge had sacked Crouch on the spot and how Dumbledore had advised Auror Shacklebolt to please arrest his former superior for aiding and abetting a murderous Death Eater's escape. How Dumbledore had questioned the house elf closely, trying to glean any clue about Barty Junior's obviously nefarious plans--  _What does he intend to do to Harry Potter?_

While that was happening far above his head, Remus circled endless support columns and ducked beams and shone the light of his wand into the angular shadows of the tunnels beneath the stadium. Padfoot wove through the dark ahead of him, following a trail that picked up and fell apart and resumed again as if, Remus thought, hoped, someone had carried Harry, or Harry had struggled, had fought, had been dragged very much alive--

Padfoot barked sharply, frantically, and took off at a run. Heedless of his own safety Remus followed, clambering over steel and stone and packed dirt and throwing himself at the pitifully small form slumped alone and unmoving and--

'He's alive,' Remus gasped, as Padfoot flowed upright into Sirius's form. He could feel a pulse-- he was sure he could, but he put his ear to Harry's chest and forced himself to listen beyond the thunder of his own heartbeat, to feel the shallow rise and fall of Harry's lungs. There was blood-- he could smell it, Padfoot had surely smelled it-- Harry's arm was torn open, he could see the flash of bone in the cold blue light of his wand, and there was a smear of it on Harry's forehead, over the scar, two lines drawn in an X. But Harry wasn't waking, his head lolled when Sirius gathered him up, limp and too light for a boy his age. Sirius was shaking, his knees knocking almost audibly, and for a moment Remus couldn't help himself. He embraced them both, crushing Harry tight between them, cheek to Sirius's cheek. Then he grabbed Sirius by the shoulder and led him out as fast as they could go.

They told no-one, not right away. Remus shielded Sirius as they ran for the campgrounds, for their tents. It seemed an age, an awful age til they were crashing through the canvas into the Weasley's large tent, diving for the nearest bed. Ginny had done what some unlucky person always had to do, and had waited there for the vain hope Harry might return on his own to somewhere he knew, and she gave a low cry on seeing them and had fetched blankets, water, clean flannels, even an array of common medicinal potions her mother always kept beneath the sink-- Sirius was casting  _Finite_ charms at Harry's still form, as Remus rattled through the bottles for a restorative. 'Re-enervate,' Remus instructed Sirius, and Sirius threw so much magic behind the spell that Harry seized a little, back arching off the mattress as his eyes bugged open. Remus forced the potion on him immediately, holding Harry's jaws closed til he swallowed.

'Harry?' Ginny asked, her voice trembling, her small cool hands absolutely steady as she took off that damned Ireland cap and stroked Harry's wild hair.

The glaze of fury and fear faded all too slowly from Harry's face. Remus almost gave him a second dose of the restorative, but Harry turned his head at the last second, cognisant enough for that at least. He didn't speak immediately, but he seemed to know them, seemed to know where he was, as he stared around, and at last allowed himself to blink. Ginny stroked away the blood on his forehead.

'Who was he?' Harry asked at last, pained whisper emerging from teeth just beginning to unclench.

'It was a man? Just one?'

'It doesn't matter just yet,' Remus interrupted Sirius. 'You're safe, that's all that matters. Rest.'

'You didn't find him?'

'There was no-one there but you,' Sirius told him, sagging into a chair in relief. 'What did he-- what did he do to you?'

The arm. Remus traded the restorative for a wound cleaner. Harry hissed, tensing up again as Remus gently bathed his arm in cold liquid. It would need a healer's touch to close the wound without a scar, but Remus had plenty practise stopping bleeding, and that he did quickly, and applied a pain reliever at the edges of the inflamed wound. A knife, he thought. Someone had ripped Harry open as if filleting a fish.

'He said--' Harry hitched a breath, fists opening and closing impotently. 'He said... blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. He kept repeating it, he was mad, I think, he just kept saying that-- blood of the enemy, forcibly taken...' Harry shuddered all over, and all three of them were on him, seeking to soothe, as Harry turned his head into the pillow.

'Give him space,' Ginny ordered them, no sign of the subdued young girl she'd been all year. She had steel, and it emerged now, with someone else to defend and protect. 'He needs space right now.'

Remus rose on creaking knees. Sirius was slower to retreat, but did when Ginny stared him down. She didn't leave Harry's bedside, but did shift down, til she was level with his knees, and only touched him with a fingertip, a fragile connection that seemed to bring Harry back from the brink. He shuddered again, a final quake to settle him, and the fight went out of him in a rush, gone.

Remus swallowed dryly. 'We need to tell the others,' he croaked at Sirius. 'Call off the search.'

'Start searching for the bastard who ripped him open.'

'He's long gone,' Remus said, guessed, knew. Blood of the enemy. He didn't know what it meant, not yet, not still straining against an hour's worth of adrenaline and terror. But if blood was all that was needed, it was got, now, and they wouldn't find anyone lingering for more.

Sirius strode to Harry's bed, and hovered for a moment, before reaching down to cup Harry's cheek. 'I'm glad you're safe,' he said thickly and quickly, and made a hard exit.

No reporter ever learnt what had really happened beneath the stadium, but that didn't stop them rampantly speculating. The general consensus at the  _Prophet_ was that Barty Crouch Junior had thought to capture his old master's greatest enemy, but had been overcome by the crowd and found no easy way to do the deed, so had abandoned Harry and fled. Others blended the narrative they'd drummed all year prior about Mad Sirius Black, who would surely seek out the son of the martyrs he had betrayed and do away with the boy in his master's memory. The Ministry insisted it was merely a crime of opportunity, that no premeditation could have accounted for the confluence of events, and, in any case, the Boy Who Lived was unharmed and safely returned to the loving arms of his family-- two untruths, but the only ones unquestioned, for how could it be otherwise? Harry was spotted enjoying the rest of the match from a box staffed with openly armed Aurors the rest of the week, and was there to cheer when Krum caught the Golden Snitch and still lost to Ireland, who had amassed goals enough to triumph at long last. Still, after the near-catastrophe of Sirius Black, Minister Fudge promised Harry another year of protection from Dementors at Hogwarts, and, an anonymous staffer was rumoured to have said, quietly arranged to move the Tri-Wizard Tournament from Hogwarts to Beauxbatons, where security was someone else's problem.

 

 

**

 

 

What woke him, he couldn't have said. Remus rolled to put his belly to the mattress, pulling the heavy duvet over his shoulders. Even a British summer felt chilly after growing used to Thailand's sultry heat. He hadn't been able to get warm for days. He lay there shiverring in his cotton nightshirt til at last the cold drove him out of his cocoon and to a cringeing hopscotch across the floor to their luggage. The coals in the brazier had gone to sparkless cinders as they'd slept, which made it very late or very early. He yanked on the first pair of trousers he reached and stockings besides, and hurriedly wakened the fire with a whispered spell. Sirius's tent was one of the most comfortable Remus had ever used, with a generous layout of wizarding space inside the slip of canvas, elegant hanging carpets and a floor of thick leather that muffled footfalls and a faintly old-fashioned decor of brassware and hunting trophies-- Sirius had hung a shirt from the poor dead stag whose antlered head glared down from the mantel, claiming it gave him the heebeejeebies. But it was still just a tent, and right now Remus would have very much preferred the lush comforts of their flat.

He tucked himself back into bed and yanked the duvet over his head, curling up with his knees to his chest. He shut his eyes against the cave-like darkness of his little blanket bubble, trying to recapture the determination not to think that had carried him off to weary sleep hours ago. It was no good, though. The mind was waking up. The mind was racing, tumbling, and he thought--

His hand brushed something hard and flaky on the knee of his trousers. The trousers he'd been wearing when they found Harry. Harry's blood. He must have knelt in it when they'd found him beneath the stadium.

'Moony?' Sirius grumped. 'For shit's sake, man, stop moving and go to sleep.'

'I need an owl,' Remus said.

'There's a couple hundred in the woods out there.'

'Fetch one.'

'I may be a dog some of the time, but I wouldn't mind a "please" before you send me off to fetch things,' Sirius said tartly. But he was already moving, grumbling as he dragged the duvet with him and ducked outside. Remus searched the little lapdesk he had dismissed as a quirky antique when they'd first bought the tent, but now thanked the stars had come stocked with a Victorian gentleman's portion of ink and parchment. He dipped a quill in the pot and scratched a five word message, but got no further than standing there staring at it by the time Sirius returned, carrying Harry's gorgeous snow owl Hedwig.

'Found her on the perch outside the Weasleys' tent,' Sirius muttered, stomping to Remus's side and rubbing at his eyes. 'What's so urgent, anyway?'

It would be or it would not be. And it might be months before he'd know the answer-- if they ever did. But somehow he thought they would not have to wait that long. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. Too, he remembered the egg shells in Albania, the dead man murdered in the mountains-- remembered, too, Peter's Dark Mark, still branded in his flesh, alive.

He folded the note once over and wrote _Severus Snape_ on the front. Hedwig took it in her sharp beak, ruffled her wings, and launched.

'Moony? Will you please invite me to the party up there?' Sirius pestered, tapping Remus on the temple.

Remus inhaled deeply, finding himself a little parched for air. 'Basilisk venom in the blood,' he said.

'That's clear then, thanks. Thanks for sharing that.'

'Basilisk venom in his blood,' Remus said again. 'In Harry's blood. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. But it was the same arm. Harry took a basilisk fang in that arm, sixteen months ago.'

'In the Chamber of Secrets? He told me a little. He said Dumbledore's Phoenix's tears saved his life.'

'But didn't remove the venom.'

'All right,' Sirius agreed, looking more baffled than ever. 'Can you get to the conclusion? I can't for the life of me guess it, and I'm too tired to play Socrates with you.'

'Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken,' Remus repeated. 'That's what Barty Crouch Junior was saying when he attacked Harry. He needed Harry's blood. I don't know how many Dark spells require an element like that, but I can guess what those spells do.'

'Blood, hair, flesh are all used for golem-making,' Sirius said, brows coming together. He looked up, alarmed. 'You think they're going to try and hurt Harry from a distance?'

'Why go to that much trouble when they had him? Crouch could've got away with Harry if he really tried. No, all he wanted was the blood.'

Sirius paled. 'You think... necromancy? It hasn't been taught in hundreds of years, how... how would Crouch even learn, he was barely out of Hogwarts when he was arrested after the war...'

'Maybe it's not Crouch. Or not just Crouch. How many others were never arrested?' The dead man in the mountains, the eggs, blood of the enemy... basilisk venom, which might make that blood worse than useless, might make it deadly, might... might anything. He didn't know enough to guess. Severus would know more, Remus was sure, but he could think of someone with even greater resources.

He scrubbed at his face with both hands, and said it. 'We need to see Dumbledore. Soon.'

'At first light,' Sirius agreed grimly. 'I'll tell Arthur before we go, and make sure Tonks knows. Go back to bed, Moony. I'll take care of it.' He pushed, and Remus found himself sitting abruptly. 'Sleep a bit more. You look like you need it.'

Maybe. But he was still sitting there when Sirius came tip-toeing in an hour later, chewing a thumbnail and thinking whirlwind thoughts. Sirius didn't scold him again. He only came and sat beside Remus, tucking cold feet under the duvet, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him as they waited out the night together.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.'
> 
> ~ Jack London, Call of the Wild

The shower ran hot, steaming even in the balmy summer air. It stung his skin as he stepped beneath the spray, stung the bottoms of his feet as he shuffled across the overheated tiles. He ducked his head and took the brunt of it on the back of his neck, let it pound across his shoulders til the pain became a kind of numbness, beyond the brain's ability to feel. Remus braced himself on the towel rack, squeezed his fists until they whitened.

A hand cupped his hip, lips pressed to his shoulder. 'Sirius,' he whispered, turning his cheek to receive a soft mouth brushing the whorl of his ear, his jawline.

'Shh,' Sirius whispered back, and nudged the faucet to a cooler temperature. 'You trying to murder me? That's deadly.'

'I like the heat.'

'Heat's not a problem.' Palms slid up over his chest, fingers weaving through the thick hair between his pecs, circling and then plucking at his nipples, pinching them between thumb and forefinger. It was a shot of heat, all right, a live-fire dance of nerves between that tease and the tight bundle of need in his groin. Clever Sirius followed it, nails digging little furrows as they tripped down to his navel, lower, lower. Remus closed his eyes and dug his teeth into his lower lip.

'Soap all right?'

He grabbed the slicked-up hand headed between his legs. 'I don't-- I don't do that.'

'I know how.'

'Oh, been here much before, have you? That's what all those girls in the flat have been doing to you?'

'I practised,' Sirius murmured. His free hand curved low and dipped between Remus's legs, seeking. 'For you.'

'Don't joke.'

'I'm not.' Sirius found what he was looking for. The tip of his finger probed, just slightly. 'Whoa, whoa,' he soothed as Remus jerked away. 'I swear I know what I'm--'

'I don't do that, all right?' He didn't expect the panic. He didn't expect the flash, the wave of it overwhelming him as the heat of the shower had not. He flung out an arm blindly, to hit, to hex, he didn't know. The heat was faster, drowning him in blackness. Sirius steadied him, held him through the faint. His heart pounded madly.

Sirius framed his face gently, thumbs brushing over his eyelashes. 'What did they do to you, Moony? All those dark years alone. What'd they do to you. Why did you let them?'

Impossible to know whether the wet on his face was tears or the shower. 'Don't say that.'

'No. I'm sorry.' Remorse dragged Sirius's silvery-grey eyes low. He leant their heads together, noses rubbing, tilting slowly up to capture Remus's mouth. 'But let me. Let me help you. Let me help you-- let me help you put it away. Put it behind you. Let me give you something new.'

 

 

**

 

 

Hogwarts was the same as it had always been.

He hated it. He hated it for being so painfully, wonderfully the same. He hadn't wanted to come back here. It was too raw still. He'd been happy here, that was what this amount of pain, the sheer razor-sharp amount of it meant. He'd been happy for a brief little while, in between worrying about escaped traitors and Weasleys in mourning and Harry, the whole bundle of issues that was Harry bloody Potter. But he'd liked teaching again. He'd liked being part of something. He'd liked going to the same bed night after night, liked regular meals and liked them even more for the congenial company that welcomed him as one of them. He'd liked belonging, again. It had been rare in his life.

No, that wasn't fair. He had only to glance at Sirius to know it wasn't true. It was more that-- more that he'd tasted real belonging, and the shadow of it had never truly left him. He'd been a Marauder no matter the other three were gone, they'd trailed him like ghosts across the Channel, haunted him back to this place where they'd been the most alive. Including himself. That was what he'd liked. Feeling like a real man again, instead of a phantom. A used-up leftover.

Watching Sirius go bounding ahead, strong and alive, Remus only wondered at the shallowness of his own depths. He was so readily exhausted. And yet he trudged on. Harry needed him.

Dumbledore met them in the Astronomy Tower. The summer sun was filtered by gauzy curtains and the arched cavern had a cozy warmth, enlivened by a steady breeze that bore a hint of cool mountain evergreen. Albus wore a light linen robe open over simple cotton garments, his long beard braided and his longer hair spread like candyfloss over his shoulders. He smiled on them with a grandfather's delight in seeing grown children-- a bit of surprise, a bit of nostalgia, a bit of mortality.

'I had supposed you would seek me out,' he commented, knocking ash from his pipe into a bowl. 'Do sit down. Tea? Poppy's special summer brew. Quite fruity.'

'Tea's lovely,' Sirius said, flopping with boneless grace into a chair sized for schoolchildren, long legs sprawling out before him at jaunty angles. 'Don't suppose there's an elf who'd be willing to whip up a pumpkin pasty, for old time's sake?'

'I'm sure they'd be delighted. Remus? Any special requests?'

He had a headache. Surely that was the source of the pain behind his eyes. 'No,' he said, a bit weakly. 'Than... thank you, but no.'

It was only moments to request and be delivered a tray of sweets. Sirius dug in immediately; they'd foregone breakfast in their haste to get away at first light, but even the seriousness of their visit didn't steal from the little hints of delight Sirius showed, biting into a pasty. Despite himself, Remus smiled.

'How is Harry?' Dumbledore asked, and Remus's smile faded.

'Taking it entirely too well,' he replied. 'He's used to pain.'

Dumbledore sighed. He set his pipe to his lips again. 'I fear you are only too right.'

'You only fear the unknown. You already know what he suffers.'

Silence. Silence from both men who sat watching him. Remus turned away to the windows. The sun here had a different quality than in Thailand. It felt further away.

'Basilisk venom,' Remus said, when the strain began to get to him. 'Harry took a basilisk fang to the arm, his second year.'

'Yes. So he told us.'

'You doubt him?' Sirius interjected. There was a hint of beligerence in it.

'No,' Albus answered, too calmly. 'If anything, Harry is prone to under-reporting danger.'

'You know the why of that as well.'

'Perhaps you should tell me what it is you've come to speak to me about, Remus. I fear the conversation goes in two directions at present, and I do not know which path you wish me to follow.'

He about-faced. 'Surely a man as talented as Albus Dumbledore can navigate five minutes of conversation.'

The pause was censorious. Remus tilted his chin high, refusing to be censored.

'Basilisk venom,' Dumbledore said, quite politely.

'It's one of the most destructive substances on the planet. It would have killed Harry-- more than killed him. It would have withered him to dust and the ground beneath him. There would be nothing left of him but pockmarks in the stone but for Fawkes and the tears of a phoenix. I wonder... I wonder just how it was that Fawkes was able to locate Harry at just the right moment? Or how your familiar knew to bring the Sorting Hat, which just so happened to hold the Sword of Gryffindor. It rather beggars belief, such a string of miracles.'

'Do you accuse me of foresight, Remus?'

'You had the foresight to prepare weapons and healing, but not the foresight to track Harry yourself into the Chamber.'

'Or did I?' Dumbledore stared him down. The weight of that gaze bore on Remus, not because it was angry or defencive or because it feigned sadness that they'd come to this, a war of words. Because it verged on a war of more than that, and Dumbledore was very good at war.

'Did I send him down there deliberately?' Dumbledore said heavily. 'Did I send him down there knowing he may well die, did I send him down there for a trial by fire against a shade of his ultimate enemy? That is what you are here to ask, isn't it? I find it curious, Remus, why you even bother. You will not believe me no matter what I say, and I think you arrived already knowing that.'

'And I think you prefer me doubting you, or you wouldn't give me so much ammunition.' He took two steps nearer, just that, and watched the tell-tale sign of the old man's shoulders tightening, though his face remained serene as ever. 'Is that it?' Remus pressed him. 'Am I your conscience? Harry is all your idealism, your... no, your innocence, I think. That's why you strive so hard to keep him ignorant and confined-- no experience of the world not sanctioned by you, initiated by you. Severus-- where does he come into this?'

Sirius picked at a crumb on the knee of his trouser. 'Moony,' he said quietly. 'Stop.'

'Severus, he's your wand-arm, isn't he? Your weapon. And you treat him like a weapon, as if he can't feel anything, only there to serve at your command and to gather dust when you don't need him. What will you make Sirius, if I let you have him back? Your faithful hound? No-- your Grim. No wonder you won't let him near Harry.'

His feet had carried him forward. He stood over Dumbledore now, his words pitched to carry no farther than the inches separating them.

'He had basilisk venom in his blood,' Remus said, with Dumbledore gazing up at him unblinking. 'Is it just another miracle that Barty Crouch Junior took blood from that arm?'

'A miracle,' Dumbledore repeated with almost no voice at all. 'Not the final miracle we need, perhaps, but one that might just bring it closer.'

'The final miracle? No, you won't tell me that. You've never lit slip a single word before its time, and you're the only one who knows what time is the right time. It must be so very lonely, I think, to live all alone there in the future waiting for the rest of us to catch up.'

He'd hit a nerve, at the last. Dumbledore's gaze fell without the will to hold it up. He looked old, in that moment. He looked his ancient years.

'Sirius will be moving back to London,' Remus said, reckless, suddenly sure. 'To take Harry as he was always meant to. I think you should give your blessing. Give Harry something to live for, not just fight for. You'd feel a great deal less damned, I think, if you did.'

His hand on Dumbledore's weathered cheek brought the great wizard's eyes back up to his. They were bright with unshed tears. He knew his own were, too. 'Please,' he said.

 

 

 

It was strange to be back at the World Cup, after the quiet of Hogwarts. The riotous nature of the campgrounds and the stadium arena were the same as the day before, though newspapers were trumpeting the events of Harry's kidnapping and safe return and his name was on nearly ever pair of lips they passed. Sirius trudged alongside Remus, thoughtful, perhaps, or upset, maybe, but silent, either way. For himself, Remus had nothing to say. He didn't know what Sirius made of their confrontation-- his confrontation, and long coming, that-- with Dumbledore, and he offered no explanation. For the life of him, he couldn't begin to explain it.

He wasn't sure he'd won anything. It had been a battle, that was sure, but he didn't know if it had a victor. Maybe Dumbledore would change. Maybe he'd go back to being the way he always had been, once the novelty of being sorry faded. It was only human.

'They're probably at the box by now,' Sirius said eventually, as they passed the market lane where Remus had first lost Harry. Only yesterday. 'Food first? I could do with a wash.'

'Yeah,' he agreed briefly. Then-- 'Fuck. I forgot about the Albanian mess.'

Sirius gave a slow chuckle at this. 'Write him a letter. I don't think either you or Albus could stand another round just now.'

'I didn't mean to be cruel.'

'I didn't say you were.' Sirius looked him sidelong, slow and considering. 'I always thought he liked you best,' he said then. 'You used to stay at his house, during the war.'

'Is that how it looked?'

'A little. I don't suppose I thought about it much. Everyone always liked you best.'

'Until you didn't.'

'Until we didn't.' Sirius looked hollow, when Remus risked a glance. 'You were good at it,' Sirius said. 'All that sneaking about and pretending-to-be-someone-else shit.'

'I didn't, really.' A bit of root amongst the trampled grass threatened to trip him up. Remus transferred his eyes to the beaten path they walked. 'Pretend to be anyone else. Who I already am-- was-- that was enough.'

'That's worse.'

'I know. Knew.'

'So I'm moving back to London, am I.'

'I shouldn't have tried to stop you doing. I should've told Dumbledore and Fudge to fuck off, told you to fight--'

'No. We needed Thailand.' Sirius stopped him, just momentarily, by slipping his arm through Remus's. But Sirius went on walking, so Remus went on with him, struggling a moment to find the rhythm of Sirius's steps before Sirius matched him, and it fell into place. 'Why don't you shower first. I'll put on the kettle and let Arthur know we're back.'

Modern plumbing in a tent, that was something new. It was a proper loo, with a pull-cord toilet and a small sink with a shaving mirror above it, and a tiled cubicle with a goodly amount of elbow room and a hot water supply that might have lasted Remus's years of homeless wandering. Nothing seemed further away than the past, til he stood stripped and unarmoured and staring at his whiskered chin in the little mirror, wondering when he'd got old.

He was thirty-three. Some part of him had always supposed he'd die young.

The shower ran hot, steaming even in the balmy summer air. It stung his skin as he stepped beneath the spray, stung the bottoms of his feet as he shuffled across the overheated tiles. He ducked his head and took the brunt of it on the back of his neck, let it pound across his shoulders til the pain became a kind of numbness, beyond the brain's ability to feel. Remus braced himself on the towel rack, squeezed his fists until they whitened.

A hand cupped his hip, lips pressed to his shoulder. 'Sirius,' he whispered, turning his cheek to receive a soft mouth brushing the whorl of his ear, his jawline.

'You didn't kick me across the room, we're making progress.' Sirius slid into the cubicle with him. Necessity pressed him close, in a shower made for one, but it wasn't necessity that aligned Sirius so seamlessly to his body. Hip to hip. Chest to back. The water splashing down drenched them both, running to rivulets that eddied about their feet.

'Shh,' Sirius whispered then, though Remus hadn't made a sound to object. He kissed Remus's shoulder, and angled an elbow back to nudge the faucet to a cooler temperature. 'You trying to murder me? That's deadly.'

'I like the heat.'

'Stop punishing yourself.' Palms slid up over his chest, Sirius's beautiful clever hands, those long graceful fingers that had done this before in rather more dreams than Remus was comfortable admitting. Sirius mapped him like planes of mystery, seeking and finding the thicket of hair between his pecs-- he'd been the first to sprout any, had more or less arrived at Hogwarts a grown man, to the envy of his roommates who hadn't understood why he took no pride in his body. He'd always rushed his showers, dressed in the dark, blushed in shame while the other boys played their innocent games of strutting and comparing and laughing at each other in good humour. By the time Remus was old enough to feel shame of a different sort for his guilty staring, adolescence had caught the others up to him and they regarded him as a harmless eccentric, ignored him as he'd taught them to do. They didn't talk to him about wanking or fumbling about with the adventurous Ravenclaw girls or any of that sort because Loony Lupin never did those things, a monk, a eunuch practically. He'd proved them wrong a few times and had no-one to share his stories with, hiding those secrets along with a thousand others because he'd stopped remembering what it felt like to not have to. Sirius was right. He was good at pretending to be someone else. He'd been pretending to be himself for so long he could hardly imagine where he'd started.

Sirius mouthed at his neck and massaged his chest, plucked at his nipples, a tender pinch that wrung a gasp from Remus. Punishment or reward, it was a shot of heat, a live-fire dance of nerves between that tease and the tight sudden bundle of need in his groin. Those beautiful hands followed its path, nails digging little furrows as they tripped down to his navel, lower, lower. Remus closed his eyes and dug his teeth into his lower lip. Sirius dragged his tongue over the knot of old scars on his neck, breathed in time with him.

'Soap all right?'

He grabbed the slicked-up hand headed between his legs. 'I don't-- I don't do that.'

'I know how.'

The absurdity of that wrung a laugh out of him. 'That's what all those girls in the flat have been doing to you?'

'I practised,' Sirius murmured. His free hand curved low and dipped between Remus's legs, seeking. 'For you.'

'Don't joke.'

'I'm not.' Sirius found what he was looking for. The tip of his finger probed, just slightly. 'Whoa, whoa,' he soothed as Remus jerked away. 'I swear I know what I'm--'

'I don't do that, all right?' He didn't expect the panic. He didn't expect the flash, the wave of it overwhelming him as the heat of the shower had not. He flung out an arm blindly, to hit, to hex, he didn't know. The heat was faster, drowning him in blackness. Sirius steadied him, held him through the faint. His heart pounded madly.

'It's all right,' Sirius was saying, the sound of it faded in slowly. 'It's all right, Moony. You're all right. It's all right.'

Impossible to know whether the wet on his face was tears or the shower. 'I can bear it hurting,' he croaked, and Sirius sighed softly, a breath of air against his cheek. 'Just-- not from you.'

'Trust me,' Sirius said. In deadly earnest, so unlike him. No winking mischief, no sultry smiles, nothing but the truth. And Remus wanted to believe.

They kissed again. Small nips, a flash of tongue, slow caresses that deepened til they breathed the same air. That inexhaustible hot water misted around them, drowning out the world beyond as Sirius twined fingers in his hair, cradled him close like something precious to be handled with loving care. It was new, all of it, new to him the way Sirius rocked his hips against the insistent pressure of want that didn't want to be rushed, only lived in, treasured. New to him the way Sirius stroked every inch of available skin, brushing without horror or pity over the silvery valleys of scars with every bit the same wonder as unblemished flesh. New to Sirius, perhaps, who learnt as Remus showed him, how to flick his teeth just so over a sensitive nipple, how to find those secret spots, the tender juncture of a thigh, the inside of his wrist, just behind his ear, the dip between his collarbones. Sirius turned him slowly to the towel rack once again, and this time Remus stood there clinging to it as Sirius mapped him head to foot, drawing invisible lines with his tongue down Remus's spine, the tight muscles of his calves, ever-shrinking spirals on his buttocks, and then between them. When a slicked finger pressed slowly in, this time, Remus braced himself and met its intrusion without letting himself think of every other time before. This was all new, for both of them, and when Sirius moulded to him, into him, they uttered the same soft curse of wonder.

It wasn't the best sex he'd ever had. He didn't die of cumming. Sirius might've practised, but they had a few false starts, a few near misses. They each got tangled up in the other's footwork, that was a mutual laugh, and Sirius listened when Remus explained, and somehow they got to it, a push-pull that met both their needs. Sirius varied shallow strokes with hard deep ones, til Remus felt stretched and loose and less concerned with the mechanics than with the pitch of live-wire tension in him, a fire just on the verge of breaking wild. They traded hands-- Sirius masturbated him slow and gentle, til he gave Remus a breathy warning and Remus took over to bring himself to the edge with rough abrasive jerks, fingernails in his balls, his forehead smeared into the tile as he panted closer-- closer-- Sirius came with a low cry wrenched out of him and Remus thought I did that, I did it, that was for me-- and Sirius folded into him, Sirius dragged him into a tight embrace with stuttered whispers and touched him, covered his hand and with him, with him, brought him off.

He couldn't blame the shower, this time. The water was still running, but he wasn't catching the fall of it, not crammed against the wall like this. He closed his eyes and it went on leaking out of him, hotter than the faucet water, and fought the sob that seized up his chest. Fought it, lost. Lost and the floodgate opened, and he stood there weeping, Sirius's come washing down his legs and Sirius wrapped around him holding him like he was something worthy of love, and he wept until the storm passed, as storms always did, and he was left with sniffles and a cloggy throat and a vague sense of embarrassment.

'Blow,' Sirius said, and pressed a square of toilet tissue to Remus's nose. His laugh came out a snort, half bogeys and half fading hysteria, and Sirius bit Remus on the shoulder in retalition for having to rinse his hand.

Remus scratched straggling hair away from his face and shifted his weight back, onto Sirius instead of the cubicle wall. 'How did you know?' he asked hoarsely.

'Just did.' Sirius cradled him, arms settling in an overlap over Remus's belly. His chin rested on Remus's shoulder. 'From the moment I saw you in the Shack. You looked half mad with grief.'

Remus remembered thinking something similar about Sirius. Had he been wrong? Or only seeing what he felt himself and thought Sirius would, must feel?

'It was-- hard,' he managed, though it somehow hurt less to say than he expected, less than the last time he'd tried. 'Being alone.'

'You're not alone, now.'

He let Sirius keep him upright as he closed his eyes. 'You'll get tired of me. This.'

'I'll probably stray,' Sirius admitted in a low rumble against his ear. 'I never kept a girl more than three months and two of those were dodging firecalls and skipping out before morning...' He breathed, for a moment, and said, 'But you don't need a forever from me. You wouldn't believe me if I tried. So how about a right-now? How about a here-together? Because we have that, we have more than enough for that, and I want to. Being here for you... it's made me alive again. Made me a man again. Made me a better man.'

He remembered thinking Sirius might have come so far only to succumb to his losses. He remembered thinking Sirius would need him, need him to be strong, need him to lean on. He remembered thinking, too, that he was done being in love with Sirius Black.

It would have crushed him, at seventeen, nineteen, even twenty-one to get this offer. An affair with an expiry date. At thirty-three he knew he was as likely, more likely really, to be the one to step away. Sirius was giving him an out. More than he deserved, really. He only wondered what it was about Azkaban had made Sirius surprisingly wise about people.

He turned in Sirius's arms, and for the first time it was he who led a kiss. A promise sealed. 'I'm glad you're back,' he said, and Sirius smiled, small, slow, real.

 

 

**

 

 

'Harry, come look outside!' Sirius called from across the house, his holler easily shattering the quiet. 'Bring your trunks, we'll have a swim.'

Harry clutched the handle of his trunk a little closer. He looked the worst sort of English in their Thai flat, pale skinny limbs sticking out his shorts and sleeves, his shock of messy hair like a briar bush beneath the crush of his Ireland cap. 'I don't know how to swim,' he confessed to Remus, fingers twitching spasm-like.

'Sirius can teach you to doggie-paddle,' Remus said, and Harry's eyes jumped up to his, widening at the joke. 'It's all right. I'm pants at it, too. Grew up in a city. And was never much for swimming trunks, with all the scars.'

'Oh.' Harry glanced at Remus's arms, wrapped up as they were in long sleeves with overhanging cuffs. The trunk made a little thump as it settled on the floor. 'Me... me too.'

That the world should make a child go through that, and make him brave enough to admit it. Remus managed a nod. 'S'all right here, though,' he said quietly.

'Yeah. I reckon Sirius won't look.'

'He never did. Nor your father.' He got as far as a smile, this time. 'They were the best friends I could have asked for.'

'Like Ron and Hermione.'

'Very like.' He backed out of the room they'd made over for Harry-- once Remus's room, and wondered if they'd be explaining the change in sleeping arrangements, later, or if Harry would put that into the trunk with all the rest of the secrets he carried. 'If there's anything you need, just search the flat for it. Flannels and books and such, it's all for one, one for all. Sirius and I... Sirius and I, we're in the room on the other side of the flat.'

Abruptly Harry relaxed. 'Good,' was all he answered, and Remus supposed that did cover it, didn't it.

'Get your trunks,' he said. 'I'll get mine and meet you out there.'

Sirius had got impatient waiting on them, and dragged chairs out into the sand on the beach, towels, a bottle of juice for each of them, and had already had himself a dip by the time Remus came ambling out. Sirius shook wet hair doggishly, took a long pull on a sweating bottle of pale Thai beer. He shared it with Remus, who sipped and found it refreshingly light. He stole another swallow before Sirius stole it back.

'You sure we need to move back to London?' Sirius asked, sprawling out on a lounger and kicking sand everywhere. The sun was glorious, and the water sparkled like blue diamond, vivid against the pink-orange blush of the sky. 'What's London but crowded streets and rain and a cold season that lasts nine months of the year and tourists and--'

'It's your money. Rent a place in Hogsmeade instead and keep this place for summers.'

'I know. I just like complaining.' Sirius tossed him a bright grin. He looked gorgeous, Remus thought, letting appreciation colour his gaze, and gratified to see it returned.

'What you think's gonna come of all of it?' Sirius asked then, finishing the beer with a swig and dropping the bottle carelessly to the sand. There was another near to hand, a six-pack sitting in a cooler. 'Albania. The dead man and the snake eggs. Barty Crouch Junior. Harry's blood.'

'It's like having half the pieces of a puzzle and no picture on the box to tell you what you're meant to be constructing.' Remus took a chair for himself, kicking off his sandals and propping bare feet on a rolled towel. 'Maybe we'll find out one day, maybe we won't. Can you live with it if we don't?'

'If old Mouldyshorts never came back?' Sirius popped the cap off his new bottle and flicked it away. 'Sounds like paradise.'

'Can you live with it if he does?'

'Comes back?' Sirius paused with the bottle at his lips. He lowered it slowly, turning it round in his hands, picking at the label. He didn't have a flip and ready answer, and Remus supposed that was all the answer needed.

'Harry won't go through what we did,' Sirius said suddenly. He looked up, snagging Remus in his glare, vibrant and fierce and ready to fight. 'Not so long as I draw breath.'

'Not so long as I draw breath,' Remus echoed, and didn't question the impulse that took him. He took the bottle opener from the cooler and gouged open his thumb-- blood welled from the cut, thick and beading and smearing fast. Remus drew an X on his palm with it, and put his hand out to Sirius. Sirius sat upright, breath quickening, and mimicked Remus as soon as the bottle opener changed hands. He slapped their hands together and held on tightly.

'So I swear,' Sirius Black said.

'So I swear,' Remus Lupin echoed. 'And done.'

'Done doing what?'

Harry stood behind their chairs. He looked uneasy, for a moment, shuffling in place with a housecoat wrapped tight to his chin. He gave Remus a twitchy little smile, and shed it to the back of the third chair.

'Hey,' Sirius said, and tossed Harry a little tube. 'Sunblock. I expect to see you slather it on, every hour on the hour, all right? The sun-cure charm makes you vomit and I'm not cleaning up.'

'Har-har.' Harry squinted down at the instructions on the tube, and squirted a thick viscous liquid into his palm. He smeared it on his skinny arms, down his too-thin ribcage. Remus didn't look. Not until he heard a rubbery rebound, and looked up to see Sirius grinning ear to ear as he bounced a red ball off Harry's head.

'Tag,' Sirius said. 'Harry's it. Run, Moony!' He dove off his chair and shoved Remus over, grabbed him up from the sand, and they raced pell-mell for the water. Harry chased after them with a whoop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you all in the final fic of this series, which will follow Bill and Remus to the conclusion of the war. I'll start posting soon. Thanks for reading!


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